


Goin' to California

by imsfire



Series: The Jem Chronicles [6]
Category: The Town (2010)
Genre: AU, F/M, Feels, NSFW, hot consensual sex, non-canon character survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-01-15 12:45:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 50,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1305343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had met him just once, and then she was told he was dead.  But the person who told her that was mistaken; he was the one who lived.  Three years later their paths cross again, and this time they're neither of them willing to wait any longer...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter one

**Author's Note:**

> After writing "Tha mo rùn air a'ghille..." and "A second chance" I was haunted by the idea of Jem escaping and trying to make a new start, and by wondering what sort of man he might have become, if he'd had that chance. Then, of course, I started to wonder how things would go down, if Agent Frawley ever caught up with him...  
> This was the result.  
> Structurally the story moves back and forth between the present day (written in present tense and always told either from Jem's pov or Frawley's) and the past (written in past tense and always told from the pov of my original character, Maggie Mathieson). I hope that it will make sense once you're reading.  
> Not all chapters are NSFW but this opener certainly is.

Someone comes into Adam Frawley’s office without knocking, and he looks up with a glare on his face. “What?”  
“Frawley, you’ve got to see this!”  
He pushes his seat back and stands up, six feet two of dark ill-temper. “Learn to knock, could you? I might’ve been busy…”  
The other agent is practically dancing in the doorway. Frawley sighs.  
“Okay, Lemmon, I’m coming. It better not be one of those fucking lolcats…”  
But it’s written all over the other guy that he has something he thinks will blow his boss’s mind. Everyone was young and keen once, Frawley reminds himself. Even me. Young and keen has its uses.  
They walk through to another office, another computer. He’s running through his current case in his mind, trying to guess what the news is. Daring to let himself hope it might be a serious breakthrough.  
“Show me what you’ve got.”  
“It’s a cold case,” says Lemmon, beaming at him, and he feels his own face fall in response.  
“Damn. I was hoping… Okay, fine. Tell me.”  
“Okay. Two days ago a man was knifed in an altercation about parking spaces, in broad daylight outside a shoe store in Capitola, California. The blade nicked his heart, but one of the witnesses knew first aid, knew how to control the bleeding; saved the guy’s life. He’s stable, in hospital. Perp was caught later that evening, admitted the attack. Weird thing, though, the witness who saved the vic managed to slip away before the police could get his statement. Turned up at Capitola PD next day, apologised for leaving the scene, made a statement and was let off with a reprimand. Since the perp was under arrest by then, the local PD didn’t print him, since they no longer needed to eliminate him from enquiries.”  
“Is this going anywhere?” asks Frawley, whose patience is thinning slightly by now.  
“What they had done by then was process the scene. They got this off the trunk of the victim’s car.”  
Lemmon brings up an image of a handprint on his computer screen.  
It’s very poor quality, smeary and unclear. Only the pinky finger has left anything like a decent print; and the next click brings up a close-up of that. It’s smeary, too, but not impossibly so; a couple of markers have been added, and beside it on the screen is another print, a clear, sharp one from their own files. Partial match, the onscreen message says.  
The name below the print from Boston is James Coughlin.  
There’s a mug-shot beside it. A round-faced white guy, early to mid thirties; sandy hair cropped in a buzz cut, large blue-grey eyes; and an expression that is at once belligerent and weirdly lonely.  
“Well!” says Frawley after a moment. “That is a face from the past.”  
He looks down intently at the face, and then at the paired prints. “It’s only a partial. But it’s the most we’ve had in over ten years. Where the hell is Capitola?”  
“Just outside Santa Cruz.”  
“Okay. Well, that is interesting. Looks like Coughlin’s gone a long way from home. This is definitely something to check out… I don’t get it, though. He manages to vanish successfully for over a decade and then shows up trying to kill someone on the other side of the country… It doesn’t make much sense. My guess is it’s not him, he just touched this guy’s car sometime in the last week or so…” Frawley turns to go, adding “I’ll look into it, though,” over his shoulder.  
“Oh no, sir, there’s more,” says Lemmon hastily. “I emailed for more details, just in case, and they came back to me with names and id for all the witnesses. He’s not the perp, but he was at the scene. He’s the one guy they didn’t get prints for. The first aider.”  
“What?” says Frawley, and he turns back, staring. “No way. No fucking way is Jem Coughlin a good Samaritan. The man was a borderline psychopath. Nope. Can’t be him.”  
Lemmon is grinning like a kid as he brings up another image on the screen. A California driver’s licence, in the name of James Mathieson. And Frawley is silent.  
He’s looking at a picture of a handsome white guy in his early or mid forties. A roundish face; sandy hair just starting to gray a little, worn a normal length; large blue-grey eyes. An expression that is calm, even serene; smile lines around the mouth, smile creases at the corners of the eyes. It’s a steady, intelligent, good-humoured face with not a trace of either aggression or loneliness in it.  
But the eyes. The eyes are familiar. The eyes are incredibly familiar.  
Lemmon clicks up the old mug-shot alongside the new picture, and at another key stroke the image recognition software takes the two faces and proceeds to pair them. Dots and lines fly, pinpointing the areas where the match is clear. The eyes, indeed; and the shape of the earlobes, the chin, the nostrils…  
“Well, well, well,” says Agent Frawley. “Mister Mathieson, is it?” He turns to Lemmon again, and now he’s keen and eager, too. “Ask them to send us everything they have on James Mathieson. I want to know where he was born, where he went to school, what he does for a living… Where does he go at the weekends, what does he like to eat, who does he know, who he’s fucking, all of it…”  
Lemmon grins, and with another touch of the keyboard he shows off the fact that he’s anticipated this. There’s a copy of Mathieson’s statement about the attack, a clipping from the local paper, a scan of a business card… Frawley leans over, his face taut, half-beaming-half-frowning in concentration. He says “Okay. He runs a gardening business. Jesus Christ. How did he get to be a fucking gardener? I want to know, did he train anywhere, where did he get start-up capital, who does his business banking? It says here he’s married. I want to know who his wife is and where the hell she comes from, how they met. Everything.”  
James Mathieson smiles up, impassive and cheerful, from the glowing screen.  
“Agent Lemmon,” says Frawley. “We are going to California.”

*************

They had met, of course, in an Irish pub in Charlestown; and then she was told he was dead and had no reason not to believe it. She had grieved, in an angry regretful way, for the fierce fiery-hot man she had kissed once and lost, without even knowing his real name. Criminal or no he’d been young and full of life, and then he and his friends had been dead and gone; all of them gone save the one that got away, and what was he to her? It had been Jem she wanted. The man with the hot mouth and the hands that gripped like steel. The one she should never even have looked at – but did; should never have touched – but did; should never have promised herself to – but did. And would do it again, without a second’s hesitation. She grieved for him, and she cried for him, and she told no-one.  
Maggie Mathieson married, barely six months later; a fiddle player named Jonathan Cable, who played in the new band she had started, in her new home in Chicago. It lasted two years. In that time she had three miscarriages, one after the other. The divorce was messy and Maggie emerged a sadder and a more guarded woman, looking at her life and seeing nothing that was worth the having; another break-up, another band busted-up, and herself fair close to busted-up, too. Alone and childless and with nothing much to draw her in any particular direction, she’d thought of going back to Boston and falling on her father’s support again. But it did seem rough, to ask him to pick up her broken dreams and wait for her to glue herself back together for a second time. He had his own life, and he wasn’t a young man; and heck, she was thirty-four years old and as near to being a woman grown as she was ever likely to be. Maybe now was the time for her to learn how to keep herself in one piece and facing forward, all on her own.  
So she had remembered the song; and gone to California with an aching in her heart.  
She’d made her new start, and her dad had been on the end of a phone sometimes, full of concern and support, but no-one had been actually there. She’d found a new job and a tiny apartment, and after a while, a new band looking for a singer had come her way. They were called Caerlaverock and the music was more Celtic fusion than pure traditional, but she picked up their existing material quickly, introduced some of her own, began to write new songs with the bass player Colin. She was finding her voice and her life, yet again, in yet another new place, another new home.  
It was odd, sometimes, remembering the cold streets of Chicago and Boston, and the dark forests and darker seas of her childhood in Pleasant Bay. So far away now, and she had been fast becoming like something from a song herself, like a wayfaring stranger, she had travelled such a-ways. But there was more sunshine in California than she had ever known; the warmth soaked into her bones, and it began to feel like she’d found a home at last.  
She kept away from the men, though, like a firework would keep from flame, had it a will of its own. After Lachlan Dundonald and Jon Cable, she didn’t want anyone else lighting her blue touch paper and then standing back. In sunshine land or among black mountains and mountainous seas, single was best for a lass like Maggie Mathieson, who could gave her heart whole in a moment, and then get it broke. It had been that way twice now; she couldn’t face it again. Three times, if she counted the dead man. The man she never forgot, the man with the clear slate-blue eyes; who was seven kinds of rough, with a lonely child’s lips and a wicked child’s chuckle. The man called Jem.  
She tried twice to write him into a song, but he would never settle into simple poetry. In her memory he was mercurial as the devil, and as hard to pin down.  
She got in with life, and with learning to enjoy life. Just as she was, alone, just Maggie.  
Caerlaverock didn’t tour; they were definitely amateurs, just playing local bars and clubs a couple of nights a week. It wasn’t a living by any means, but with a nine-to-five as well, she had enough to live on and time to give to the music.  
It was a Friday night and they were playing at a bar on the banks of Soquel Creek; they got called back for an encore, and then the stomping and clapping went on and they realised they could do another. There was a moment of delight, and then immediately one of pure embarrassment as they realised they’d played the set out and kept only one song back. Which they’d now done already.  
Her mind went back to Chicago and her last band. “Guys, do you know ‘Ashokan Farewell’? That’s a great closer…”  
But only Colin did, and you can’t play ‘Ashokan Farewell’ on an electric bass and a frame drum, and Maggie didn’t have her flute with her. She said “I could do a solo, if you people don’t mind?”  
She took the stage alone, and wrapped her hands round the mike and sang “Tha mo rùn air a’ghille”; I love the lad.  
When she introduced the song there had been a sudden movement on the far left of her field of vision, right in the shadows by the exit. All through the long chain of stanzas and repeats she kept stealing glances that way, wondering what the fuss had been. The song was familiar enough that at first it no longer made her consciously sad, but she felt it catching up with her as she came to the last repeat. She had remembered to dedicate it “to J”, with the little story of the guy she’d promised to sing it for, who never made it to see her again; just as she’d always done, ever since Boston. She suddenly wondered if perhaps it was time to lay that particular ghost.  
She finished the last repeat, and bowed, smiling and saying thank-you, and turned to come off the stage; and she saw him.  
He was loitering right in the doorway, hanging back almost out of sight. He looked as though he planned to be somewhere else as soon as she stopped singing. The emergency exit lights gave his hair a strange red-green stripe. But the brooding mouth and wide-set eyes were unmistakable. As were the big hands, with their long fingers and pronounced knuckles. A man can grow his hair out in a few months, never mind three and a half years; but the height and the build of him, the shape of those hands, those lips, those speaking eyes; those, he can’t change so easy.  
She knew the touch of those hands, the feel of that body against hers. The fire of those eyes, closing in on her as he’d pulled her close. The sensual power of that mouth.  
But the mouth she had kissed belonged to a dead man.  
The applause was still enthusiastic, and in a daze she turned back to smile and bow once more, and wave and say into the mike “Thank you! Thank you, that’s all, folks, thank you, good night!”  
And when she looked again he had gone.  
She rejoined her band-mates and said with a fake cheerfulness that stunned her even as she came out with it “I’m just stepping out for some air, guys. Kind of close in here.”  
She ran, as soon as she was out of their sight.  
There was a little alley at the side of the bar, and she stood there staring to left and right in the dark, bereft. She knew it couldn’t have been him; the man had been half-hidden, right where the light by the door was red-and-greenest, and dimmest, and weirdest. She’d been mistaken, that had to be it. Doubtless he was some harmless local who’d just happened by. She’d see him in the street sometime and think “Oh, that’s the guy I thought was – but he doesn’t look nearly so like, not by daylight”. She was dreaming, or she was hallucinating, or she had just let herself be fooled for a second by the most ridiculous fantasy she’d ever entertained. It was that damned song; that was it. She’d never sing “Tha mo rùn” again, not if it turned her brain like this and set her to seeing ghosts, or imagining them at the least.  
There were dumpsters in the alley, and it had been raining, one of those brief California spring showers. The wet tarmac and the dark wet bins were so familiar suddenly that she felt herself shaking, remembering another alley, another evening after rain. For a moment she could almost hear that rough voice again, saying her name, husky with cigarettes and mocking laughter.  
She wanted to howl, but only a sob of frustration escaped her throat.  
Next second the voice did speak, hoarse with tension but unmistakable, and she whirled round with a muffled scream of shock. She faced him and stood staring.  
He looked just as much as though he’d seen a ghost as she knew she did. It was weird how reassuring that was. He had said her name, and now he stood silent, and he stared, just as she did.  
She drew a ragged breath. “It is you…”  
“Ya lookin’ for me?” -  
“I thought you were dead” –  
They spoke across one another, tense and hasty. There was a pause and then he said  
“Listen, I need to talk to ya.”  
“Yeah, that’s okay, sweetie, I’m here, talk to me. Oh, my sweet God, I saw you, I couldn’t believe it was you but it is, isn’t it? It is you! I’m so glad you’re okay!”  
He shuffled his feet, still staring at her. His huge, clear eyes were troubled, like the sea before a storm. He said “I gotta ask ya. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t tell anyone! Listen, I – I woulda threatened ya, once, I woulda known how to scare ya shitless and I woulda done it, ya gotta believe I woulda done it and I woulda followed up on it, too. But – Jeezus! – I ain’t that guy anymore, Maggie Mathieson. I’ve been workin’ so fuckin’ hard to try and turn myself around. I can’t do that stuff anymore. So I just gotta trust ya, I gotta ask ya not to talk! I’m taking a fuckin’ big gamble here, ya know? Please, Maggie Mathieson, don’t make me have to turn the clock back and hurt ya. Not after three years. Please.”  
“Three and a half. It was the fall when we met.”  
“Right, huh? Ya been countin’?”  
“I guess I have,” she had to say after a moment. “Look, I don’t know how I can prove this to you, I guess all I can say is please, same as you. Please believe me, I’m not planning on talking to anyone about seeing you here tonight. Heck, what would I tell them? – I never even knew your real name! I’m just so glad you’re alive. I won’t tell on you, I promise.”  
“I guess we have to trust one another, then, huh?”  
“Please trust me! Please…” She was still reeling at the sight and the sound of him there, alive; and for some reason the idea that he might think she was going to run, to call down damnation and danger on him – on a guy she’d thought dead just ten minutes ago - was weirdly painful. Criminal or no, he was alive. And hadn’t he said he was trying to turn himself around? That had to mean something, right? “I swear I won’t tell. Guides’ honor.”  
There was a tiny pause and then a rusty chuckle escaped him. “Guides’ honor? Ya were a fuckin’ girl scout? Jeezus!”  
The sound made her shake inside, as though she’d drunk too much caffeine. “C’mon, I’m from Nova Scotia. All Canadians are fucking scouts, we just love the great outdoors, for sure, you knew that! Hiking and swimming and making ‘smores round the campfire…”  
She wanted so hard to make him smile; and he did. Then chuckled, again. That rough engine of a laugh, more cautious now but with the same timbre, an unforgettable noise, like everything else about him. Stood there in the alley with her, alive. Alive. Not dead, not a ghost or a dream; real.  
Her mind kept tripping over that simple fact, so incredible, yet incredibly, true. He was real.  
“’Smores, huh?” he said. “Is that what ya meant when ya said ya liked ya comforts?”  
“Oh, my God, did you remember that? That is so crazy…”  
And with that, suddenly between them was more than just the shock and confusion of him being alive and her being there; there was another memory, one that made her breath come faster just thinking of it. Those hands, that mouth, on her, that rainy night in Boston when he’d seemed like all the fine hot life she’d been missing for the past nine months.  
It was more than nine months, this time. Over a year since that last occasion Jon had laid a hand on her. Which she could hardly call love-making, uncaring as he’d been by then.  
She knew the thought was flushing her skin and making her pulse go fast and she tried to give herself a few seconds to calm it somehow, or to hide it. She said, a little wildly “So hey, tell me, what do you do to turn your life around? I mean, I’ve done it, kind of, but I guess I never had the same sort of major stuff to run from as you, I’ve never done anything illegal or even much out of the ordinary…” His expression was a study and she floundered. “Oh, God, I’m kind of digging myself into a hole, here, aren’t I? I’m sorry, sweetie, I didn’t mean to be rude…”  
“It’s okay,” he said, wryly. He recovered quickly. He must have had a lot of practice, after all, at hiding his thoughts. “I guess this is as much of a shock for ya as for me, huh? How did I turn my life around? Hard fuckin’ work is how, Maggie Mathieson. Starting with a book on anger management I threw against the wall so many times I don’t think it has a page that isn’t bent or bashed. Two years of NA meetings, and a therapist I spent the first six months wanting to murder. Night school, and a damn’ diploma that’s meant to make me employable for the first time in my life. And a new name, of course, since I couldn’t be James Coughlin anymore.”  
“Was that your name?” If so, then he was trusting her indeed. Just as she was trusting him; trusting him not to knock her over the head the moment she turned around.  
But she couldn’t believe he was going to do that, not now. He would have done it straightaway, if so. Why bother to talk to her at all, otherwise?  
“Well, yeah, that was my name. But ya’d best forget ya heard it. He don’t exist no more, Maggie Mathieson. Remember that.”  
“You could call me just Maggie, you know?”  
“Huh. I guess I could…” His eyes were locked on hers and he had put his head slightly to one side. His smile was small and crooked, but real.  
“For that matter,” she said, feeling suddenly crazy at the sight of that skewed grin directed on her “You could buy me a drink. Seeing as we’re kind of old friends, or old acquaintances at least, and maybe we have some stuff to talk about. Maybe even some unfinished business.”  
For a moment he looked bashful, almost to being uncertain, and she thought, yes, he has changed, that aggression’s eased. Spent on that book he threw at the wall, I guess. There’s a sweetness I don’t remember noticing before.  
He had changed; but the things that had drawn her were the same. The huge eyes, the superb hands; the guarded air of a man who might be trouble. She wondered if he still played the guitar.  
She realised she was looking into those eyes and near-drowning in them.  
“So, so, tell me what I should call you. Since, ah, the name you just mentioned is not to be spoken-of, and I’m thinking maybe ‘Jem’ isn’t your preferred nickname these days, either.”  
“I don’t really have a nickname anymore. Nor anyone close enough to give me one. But no-one’s known me as Jem since Boston. I guess I’m just plain James, these days.”  
“James what, though?”  
He wriggled like a kid, and looked at her from under creased brows, so that she had to swallow her heart hard. Bashful bad boy; he was a sight for sore eyes. Sweet God in Heaven, how did confusion get to be so darned sexy?  
“Ya gonna be pissed with me,” he said sheepishly.  
“Nooo… I don’t piss off that easy, babe. Tell me, wontcha? James what? C’mon, Jamie boy!”  
“Jamie, huh? I like that. I could live with being Jamie.”  
“But Jamie what?”  
“Well, uh. James Mathieson.”  
And there was a long, amazed pause, before she said slowly “You’re James Mathieson, these days? What are you, some kind of Boston Irish cousin of mine?”  
“Well, ya know, Maggie Mathieson, I kinda had to think of something quick. It was the first name that came to mind, is all. And I’ve just been stuck with it since, I guess.”  
“Stuck with it, eh? You know what, I think you can buy me that drink, Jamie Mathieson. I think you owe me.”  
“Maybe I do, at that.”  
She had believed him dead; and he had been living under her name. He was grinning at her now, that crooked adorable grin, mocking and apologetic at once.  
She said “You wait here, you hear me? I need to get my things. Please don’t go – please!”  
She had to let him out of her sight, for the few minutes it took to dodge back inside and get to the little back room, and find her purse. She consciously had to suppress the fear that he would vanish into the night and be gone again when she came back.  
But she emerged into the alley and he was still there, smoking by the dumpsters. She saw him as he turned quickly back to her, thick fingertips pressed to his lips momentarily as he plucked the cigarette away; saw how the sharp movement stirred his fair hair so that it shifted on his forehead. It was the one major change in him, physically, the regular-length hair, but it suited him. Suited this new, calmer man, at least.  
She smiled, and he looked at her for a moment before smiling back and tossing aside the half-smoked cigarette.  
They went a couple of blocks, closer to the sea front, to a different bar. She drank a single glass of Syrah, slowly, while he downed three doubles of Jameson, seemingly without any ill effects. Unless talking was the result of the liquor; for talk he did, on and on, like a man who has not had the chance in years.  
He said “So, you know about the Fenway job, right?” and when she had nodded in agreement he took another swig of whiskey and just plunged in, headlong.  
He told her about seeing his friends die; about seeing a man he’d loved like a brother lay down his life to buy him, Jem, a way out. About learning the local king-pin was dead and the place was going to be hotter than fuck for a while until someone else took charge; about the streets crawling with Feds; and his sister having been the one that led them to him. Told her about realising how simple it really was. He couldn’t stay in Charlestown; couldn’t stay in the only home he’d ever known. Not if he wanted to stay alive.  
So he had run. And had found that you don’t watch your best friend die for you and then run away with a quick “Oh, shit”, and have nothing more to pay.  
He told her about the nightmares, and the bitter, terrible guilt.  
He told her how he’d moved steadily across half the country, hiding out for a week in one town, two weeks in another. How he was dogged by that bitterness. How it took the savour from everything he did.  
His eyes became lost in the dark of memories as he went on.  
He told her how he’d tried to play his life away, with all the money he’d got from that last job. How he had bought himself boy-toys, and played them till he broke them or played out every permutation of every game and bored himself to screaming. How he bought and then wrecked a shiny vintage corvette; how he had walked away from the crash with shaking hands, sick to his stomach, and left town the next day as though nothing had happened. How he had lain down to sleep either stoned or dead drunk, so many times he had no hope of keeping a count. How he had tried to OD, and then panicked and called his dealer, and been cursed at like a sick dog and dosed with some counter-agent that left him a shaking, sobbing mess but saved him. How he had heard a dead man’s angry voice in his mind, night after night, accusing him of pissing away his life on coke and x-box.  
How he had thrown his x-box away, and set himself to enduring Narcotics Anonymous meetings for two years, in Kansas. Had paid up for a counsellor who made him talk about everything that had ever made him angry, and helped him break himself down somehow without killing himself in the process. Had worked through night school classes until finally he could get the equivalent of a high school diploma. Had left Kansas clean of drugs and with no idea what to do or where to go next; but with Doug’s bitter voice silent at last inside him.  
He had decided that since he wasn’t going to kill himself with pleasure he had better spend some of the remaining money on learning to do something with the rest of his life. It had taken an idle conversation a month later, with two guys unloading a cement mixer at a house they were renovating, in New Orleans, to set him off in a direction he’d never thought of before. The builders had spoken with a mixture of disgust and envy of how much the motherfucker re-designing the garden was being paid, for nothing more than a few drawings and a list of plants.  
Plants were tougher than people, he’d thought, and they didn’t complain any. Plants grew, when nothing else could; they covered dead places and burned ruins, they were patient, they made barren land green. Plants made food. Plants were kinda beautiful. So he’d moved on again, to Texas this time, and taken himself to college, and studied horticulture.  
And here he was, newly qualified; thinking to sink the last of the Boston money into starting a business; and looking across the table at her as he finished his story. Grinning that wicked-child grin she remembered, tossing back the last of his whiskey and saying “So, Maggie, ya turn now, huh? How come a hot bitch like ya’s still single and free?”  
Her expression must have changed pretty sharply; he blinked and said “Hot chick? Babe? I guess I called that one wrong. Sorry? Ya know, this reformed-character thing is still a work in progress sometimes… Well, whatevah. Ya still hot.”  
She wanted to cry for a moment. He had poured out his soul to her and now he finished on one of the weirdest bits of gallantry she ever would hear. And all she had to say to him in return was “I just got divorced. We split a year ago, it all got finalised last month. So I guess, yeah, I’m single and free again now.”  
It wasn’t interesting at all, after all. Not her story. He wouldn’t want to hear more than that. And certainly not the miserable petty details about Jon and her darned faulty hormones.  
But he creased his brows at her, half-frowning and half-hurt, and said “Is that it? I spill my guts and that’s all ya give me? C’mon, Gaelic!”  
She looked up sharply into his blue eyes. “It’s not – it’s not interesting. And it’s not easy to talk about this kind of stuff.”  
“Nor was my stuff!”  
She’d finished her wine, and there was still half an hour to closing time. She said “I think I’ll need one of those whiskies now.”  
Once the glass was in her hand, and a mouthful of the contents inside her, she sat looking at the table for a minute, and then she told him. Dull and ordinary matters, beside his story, but it was what she had to give him. The weird semi-rebound state she’d been in, the new band, the fiddle player, the lightening-quick romance and the marriage regretted at two long years’ leisure. Her inability to carry a child to term, and Jon’s increasing lack of any feelings towards her save anger.  
She felt her voice shifting in colour and tone as she talked, and saw his expression shift, likewise.  
It still wasn’t as long a narrative as his, but it took them to last orders, and she found herself struggling to think of some way, any way, she could keep him with her. Nothing subtle or clever presented itself, only the smoky richness of Jameson and the memory of a mouth that had tasted the same, three and a half years ago on the other side of the country. She couldn’t be drunk, on one glass of wine and one of whiskey… But she couldn’t face the prospect of just saying goodbye, seeing him go off into the night once more. Reformed crook or no, she’d never stopped wanting him. Suddenly she couldn’t bear for Jonathan’s final dismissive fuck to be the last time a man had touched her.  
She found herself in the street, in a warm night breeze, with Jem – no, James, Jamie, she mustn’t call him Jem – beside her; found herself looking at him and having no idea what to say. Then realising the same helplessness was in his eyes too. His lips parted but said nothing, and shook as he closed them again, and she wondered out of the blue how often he’d been with a woman, since he began on this work-in-progress that was the rebuilding of his life. She took one step closer and took his face between her hands; and saw the fire catch him as she leaned in.  
His arms went round her as though round something as strong as life and as precious. His mouth met hers halfway, hot soft lips already open and hot tongue pushing on hers. She managed to get one arm down and wrapped round his body, but the other stayed round his neck. Her hand slid to his shoulder and tightened, feeling the bunched muscles there, then moved up again to curve into his thick hair, pulling him to her. The barkeep, coming out to lock up, saw the two of them and laughed. They ignored him.  
Jem pushed her back against the wall and pushed himself against her, pressing close to touch her everywhere, rocking his hips forward so that his erection was hot against her mound, then sliding one hand down onto her ass, and lower, to lift one of her legs off the ground so that he could push in against her more closely still.  
She wanted to cry out with pleasure already, still fully dressed and in public. The feel of him pressed on her, stronger than anything she’d ever known, before or since that night in Boston. She was panting and wet already, craving more and more as he crushed her between the hard wall and his own rock-hard body.  
He pulled away from her mouth long enough to bury his face in the side of her neck and bite her, firmly. She whimpered, gasping for breath, ghosting her hands inside his t-shirt, feeling skin like silk pulled taut, and the power of muscle and bone beneath it. She caught in another breath and managed to whisper “Come home with me. Oh, please, baby, please, come home with me!”  
He lifted his mouth to run butterfly kisses up her neck and then nip her earlobe sharply; and drew back to say in a husky growl “I was plannin’ to, so thanks for the invite!”  
“You knew I was going to say that!”  
“Well, Jeezus, I sure hoped ya would! Ya were the one that got away, ya know?”  
“So were you…”  
“In more ways than one…” He was whispering now, momentarily serious. His mouth was half an inch from hers and next second when he chuckled she felt his whole body shake. She leaned into the earth tremor of his amusement, and the drowning wave of his eyes. He said “Not gonna let ya get away again, Gaelic!” and pressed into her again, in another breathless kiss.  
By the time they reached the apartment building they had gone from walking side by side to arm in arm, and then to going wrapped round one another like a couple of drunks. Twice they had stopped at street lamps and gotten tangled up in one another, locking mouths and bodies, eagerness pressing against eagerness in the pool of light. It slowed their walk home, and the second time when they broke apart Jem said “No more of this till we get there, Maggie Mathieson, or I’m not gonna get there at all.”  
“It’s not far now…”  
“Good. ‘Cos I have a boner harder than a fuckin’ semi-automatic and I do not want to get arrested for public indecency!”  
“Oh, sweetie! Just keep moving and we’ll soon be able to sort that out for you…”  
He went on walking, making little grumbling noises and grinning at her at intervals, joking “Ya too hot for me - I ain’t gonna make it!”  
“Sure you are. Sure you are, come on!”  
They made it.  
It wasn’t a big place – her father would have called it a shoe box – but after a lifetime of accommodating the habits of room-mates and two years of accommodating Jon, Maggie had been more than ready to take whatever she could get if it could just be hers and no-one else’s. The two of them tumbled through the door now, and he was already wrapped round her from behind as she worked the bolt home and set the locks. His mouth on her neck again, kissing and then nibbling at the tender spot he had bitten earlier. His arms gripped round her, one hand claiming and squeezing a breast while the other spread across her belly, pressing her to him and to the pressure in him. His fingers pushed into her soft flesh, probing and caressing, moving downwards as she rocked her hips back against him. She caught her breath and managed to say “Let me get the place shut up at least…”  
“Hurry up, then. I already seen ya gotta bed.”  
“I’ve got everything in one room, pretty much, it’s just a studio apartment, the kitchen area’s over there” –  
“I don’t need a tour!”  
“What do you need, then?”  
“Lemme get at ya and I’ll show ya!”  
She made a long arm to get the keys on their hook and then twisted round eagerly in his arms, pulling the strap of her purse off her shoulder. He seized the bag and threw it to the floor, seized her and threw her against the door, seized her arms and threw them above her head. Clamping both her wrists in one big fist, the other hand working down her body, grazing across her breasts and then pulling her shirt out of the waistband of her slacks so he could touch her skin. She tried to free herself, wanting to grab hold of him, but he was startlingly casual in his strength, and his hands were large. He had her pinned. She moaned into his mouth as he thrust his tongue beside and around hers; and he began to roll himself against her, butting the straining bulge of his cock against her hip, her crotch, her other hip, teasing her and himself. She raised one foot and kicked off her sandal, wrapping her leg around both of his, pulling him closer still.  
He began to work the shirt up her body, tugging it one-handed; over her breasts, quickly past her face and up her arms, to entangle it round her wrists, hooking the fabric on her fingers and thumbs so that for a moment she was tied, trapped by her own clothing. By the time she had wriggled free he had lowered his hands and was running a thumb over each breast appreciatively. She threw the garment off and ran both hands into his hair, gripping and dishevelling it as he bent to her neck and then her breasts. He was breathing like a marathon runner now, deep and fast, hot breath pounding on her bare skin. He licked slowly across her décolletage and tugged at the border of one bra cup with his teeth, holding the ripe weight of her breasts, one in each palm. He dipped his head lower, to bite gently on her nipple through the soft white cotton. His hands had slid behind her and he was fiddling with the clasp of her bra; it resisted, and she felt the vibration of his laughter almost before she heard the sound. He mouthed the words “Goddam thing!” into her tit, chuckling at his own impatient fumblings.  
She slid her own hands quickly up and undid the fastening, hearing with a thrill of pleasure how he grunted in approval as the movement lifted her breasts forward. He caught hold of her hands and pinned them again, pushed up tight in the small of her back, keeping her arched and trembling against him. With his other hand he pawed the fabric of her bra aside before letting his fingers dance across one smooth breast and draw tightening circles there while his mouth claimed the other.  
He worked on her forcefully with tongue and lips, then with his teeth, exquisitely, perilously gently. He began to suck, softly and then harder, and she found herself uttering little stifled wails on each exhalation, and thrusting herself towards him. He was working on her rhythmically, sinking his mouth onto her breast with an animal snuffle of satisfaction, then slowly sucking back until his lips clenched round her hard nipple and squeezed tightly on the almost painful sensitivity there.  
She no longer seemed to have any words except “ohh”; she moaned it over and over with each thrust and pulse of his mouth on her body.  
He slid his free hand down and tugged open the button and then the zipper of her pants, and worked his way inside. The heel of his hand pushed against her belly just above the pubic bone and the pressure made her gasp with pleasure. Next moment she felt his fingers brush her clit and probe down into the throbbing wet folds at the mouth of her cunt.  
If she had been close to coming before, this was near-agony. She moaned and pushed back against him helplessly, urging him on.  
Instead, suddenly he moved off; pulled both his hands away and let go of her nipple, and straightened, stepping back. His face was flushed and he was panting like a steam train. He stared into her eyes with pupils dilated as though by a drug, and held her away. Stood there gasping and staring at her half-naked body, swallowing hard.  
“What’s wrong?” Her voice was barely more than a squeak. “Don’t stop!”  
“Ah, Christ… Gimme a second here. It’s been a long time, baby, I don’t know how long I can hold on” –  
“Sweet baby Jesus, Jem, get your goddam clothes off and fuck me already!”  
He was still panting for breath, but a huge grin spread across his face at that. She stepped away from the door, discarding the trailing bra and pushing her pants and underwear off, letting them drop, stepping out of them. Grabbed his t-shirt and hauled it off over his head.  
She had toyed with tying his hands, to get back at him for tangling hers. She found herself staring at him and lost the will to take control.  
“Oh, God, you’re so beautiful.”  
She didn’t know where to touch first, his chest with its faint silken hair and rosy nipples, his magnificent biceps, his sculpted abdomen and its soft hair-trail… Perfect abs and pecs alike were heaving as he tried to catch his breath. She dropped the shirt and let her eyes run over him. Dear Heaven, what a body. “Oh, God, Jem, please…”  
He toed off his runners and unbuttoned his Levis, carefully, and slid them down, more carefully still; then stepped out of them and did the same with the plain white boxer shorts he had been wearing. He winced and bit his lip, freeing himself, and looked up at her, swallowing. He was so hard it must be painful; but he was beautiful, like some scarred and tattooed Classical bronze, standing in the middle of her apartment, melting her with eyes of hot sapphire.  
She took a single step towards him and reached out, with hands that shook.  
Hands that he caught, almost roughly, before she could touch him. He held her by the wrists again and walked her backwards towards her own unmade bed. Her shins hit the frame and he pushed her gently down and climbed on beside her. Let go her hands again, laying himself down over her body, pulling her to him, his mouth latching onto hers once more.  
She reached down, clasping the perfect curve of his ass; and sliding one hand round she stroked his rock-hard cock at last, caressing him with her fingertips, and then shifted a little and guided him into her.  
She was wet like Niagara; but it had been more than a year, and he wasn’t a small man. He groaned helplessly, pushing into her tightness, slow and deep, and she felt her muscles flexing on him, the first ripple of her orgasm beginning already as he rocked her back and spread her wide, and started to thrust inside her. She tried to hold on, but he had caught her an angle where every movement was putting a tiny fluctuating pressure onto the skin just below her clit, tugging down on the intense sensitivity there; shivers of sensation ran up through her and within minutes she was helpless to do anything but let go and go over the edge, shaking, spasming, hands clutching and thighs gripping, hot wet cunt squeezing tighter and tighter as she started to moan his name. His rhythm broke down into a frenzy of thrusting and he shuddered in her arms, crying out as if in pain. She felt him spurt inside her, three times, four, five; hot little geysers of semen filling her, wet into her wetness. He whimpered, the last quivers of orgasm still shaking him, and lay panting on top of her.  
She was still moaning “ohh” on each out-breath, coming down from her own pleasure, and there were two voices now, gasping wordlessly in tandem; “ohh… ohhh… ohh…” She had shut her eyes as she came; she opened them again, taking in the shoulder and the half-hidden face, the muscles moving as he swallowed and moaned into her throat once more. There was a little scar on the back of his neck, right up almost in the hairline.  
She reached up and caressed it, and then stroked down the length of his spine, letting her hands worship what she could find no words to express.  
His breathing slackened gradually. She could feel him softening inside her now; his little cries were in response to the last aftershocks of her coming on him. He lifted himself away, sliding slowly out of her as she gave a murmur of regretful protest. He settled against her side, his left hand cupping the same breast he had suckled on earlier, and rested his head on her shoulder.  
She thought he was going to fall asleep, but instead after a moment he opened his eyes. They were stormy blue now and warm with life. He smiled at her.  
Over the next six years she would see that post-coital smile, compounded of equal parts tenderness, lust and confused disbelief, many, many times. Every time it would delight her, to realise he still had not got over his incredulity at having her there beside him.  
That night, that first time, she lay trying to smile back, half-afraid that this simply couldn’t be real. Surely no-one, let alone Jem, dead, lost Jem, could really be gazing at her like that. As though she were treasure, or paradise…  
He looked at her happily and stretched over to kiss her neck, and said as he might have done at the end of the most conventional first date imaginable “So, can I see ya again?”  
She was paradise and treasure. For a moment she could hardly breathe. “Can you see me again? Heck, yeah!”  
The smile deepened into a huge, wicked grin. “I don’t think we did ourselves justice, tonight. I’m kinda outa practice, I mean. It’s been a while.”  
“For me, too. Honey, if that’s you out of practice I don’t know if I’ll survive when you really get your hand in…”  
His eyebrows twitched. “When I get my hand in, huh? Can I take it that means ya’d like some hand action sometime?”  
He reared up and leaned over to plant a long, hot kiss on her mouth as she laughed. She threw her arms round him, pulling him close, wanting more. But he drew back with a sigh and said “I’m gonna have to take a rain check on that…”  
“You spent yourself pretty thoroughly back then, didn’t you?”  
“Shit,” said Jem. “It would be a fuckin’ unappreciative man who didn’t spend himself in that fuckin’ beautiful pussy.”  
He sat up, looking around as she took the compliment on board.  
“Uh, thank you?” she said, and then “Don’t go!”  
“Bathroom?”  
“Oh – through there…”  
She pushed herself up on her elbows to have the pleasure of watching him walk the three yards to the bathroom door. She didn’t know if she’d ever seen a finer figure of a man. Heck, if that was the body gardening got you, it was a wonder it wasn’t included in gym memberships.  
Since he didn’t shut the door she discovered she would get to watch him piss, which she hadn’t expected, but damn it, he even looked hot doing that. She made herself look away, check the clock, smooth the rucked sheet; and he sat down beside her with a sigh, and stretched, and she was transfixed again. Until she realised he was still looking around the place, searching for something. His clothes, presumably.  
She said again, sadly “Don’t go, baby…” knowing that he would anyhow.  
He looked over his shoulder at her, almost shy for a second. “Can I stay?”  
“Hell, yeah…”  
He grinned; but then went back to looking.  
“Jem – Jamie - sweetie, what’ve you lost?”  
“D’ya have any covers for this fuckin’ bed?”  
“Oh! – yeah – there’s a duvet. Or there was. I think we kicked it halfway to Ottawa, but it should be around someplace…”  
“I got it.”  
He retrieved it and wrapped it round them both. Lay looking at her, guarded and hopeful as a boy.  
“Can I really stay?”  
“I said so, didn’t I? Please, baby, you got yourself a dumb Canuck; come cuddle her and don’t go!”  
“Okay…”  
He shifted closer and she tucked herself against him, snuggling into the crook of his arm. His big hands spread over her body, cradling her, and within moments he was sound asleep. Maggie lay still, listening to his measured breathing, wondering if she would ever find sleep herself after such an unforgettable evening.  
And woke, to Saturday morning and spring sunlight, and the man she must try to remember to call Jamie, asleep in her bed with his head nestled against hers.


	2. Chapter two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jem's past begins to catch up with him, and he has to decide what to do...

He’s cleaning the big grass-cutting machine when a voice behind him says  
“Afternoon, Jem.”  
It’s a man’s voice, and he doesn’t recognise it. The only person who would call him that these days is a woman, anyway. And even she does it pretty seldom now, and only if they’re alone. But the accent has an echo of home, which is painful, and disturbing. Briefly he ignores the voice, though he is gathering himself to turn round; he hopes the speaker isn’t sharp-eyed enough to notice the infinitesimal tensing of his shoulders and neck, for just an instant, before he consciously relaxes again.  
He finishes wiping the thick, caked mass of oily grass clippings off the mowing blade, and straightens and turns casually.   
“You speakin’ to me? Sorry; I’ve never been ‘Jim’, don’t ask me why, I just never have. Didn’t realise you meant me for a moment.”  
The man looking at him is familiar; wired and tense as he’s been, the last few days, since that goddam business with the knifing outside the shoe store, it takes him only a split second to place the face with the precision of utter certainty. He’s practically having flashbacks. Jeezus.  
He can’t remember the name, can’t even remember if he ever knew it; but the face, now that he remembers as though it were yesterday. The tall Fed, the one who told them they were all going to rot in jail. The one who had been about to shoot him, and had shot Doug instead.   
Somehow he keeps his expression calm; keeps the face of James Mathieson the professional gardener, meeting a stranger. A potential customer. Calm, with an affable overtone. He smiles at the man who killed his best friend.  
There’s a pause, and he shifts his weight and holds the smile. Knowing that this is possibly going to be the most important conversation of his life.  
“Can I help you with something?” he asks, after what seems a reasonable interval.  
“I don’t know,” says the Fed. Eyes slightly narrowed. A real cold look; like he’d like to be pumping slugs into Jem, too, right this moment. It’s an uncomfortable look to be getting and he fidgets, as anyone would, finding themselves at the end of that semi-automatic glare.  
“So,” the Fed says. “You’ve never been ‘Jim’, huh? Funny, that. ‘Cause ‘Jim’ is not what I said…”  
Jem knots his brow carefully, waiting for the next words, but none come; just that drilling stare. He says “Uh-huh?” in a voice he tries to pitch as just to the puzzled side of neutral.  
The tall man grins like a shark. “Uh-huh. Okay. So – how long have you lived here? You’re from Boston originally, aren’t you?”  
“Wow. Wow, that’s impressive.” He brings back the smile, because James Mathieson would still be expecting this to be a new client. So he too has to be that innocent. “I didn’t think I had that much of an accent anymore. Yeah, that’s right. I left years ago, must’ve been ten years ago at least. Yeah… Anyhow, that’s – I hope that’s not a problem, huh? What can I do for you?”  
“Are you James Mathieson, proprietor of Green Sunshine Gardens?”  
“Yeah. Well. Co-proprietor, with my wife. You looking for someone to do some garden work?”  
“No.”  
“Uh… Okay…”  
“So. Your wife, huh?”  
“Yeah. My wife Maggie.” He judges that by now he can start to let his concern show a little more. “Why’d you ask? She’s not here, she’s with a client at the moment.” There is another pause, and he says with a touch of heat “Would you mind telling me what this is about? ‘Cause if you’re not, like, looking for a gardener, then – uh – what’s going on? Is there something wrong?”  
The badge appears, now. He steps a little closer, to look carefully, as he would be bound to do if he’d never seen one before outside of the tv. He lets his forehead knit a little tighter, says with some anxiety “What the? – Officer, I mean Agent, Frawley, what’s this about , please? Has something happened?” He lets his voice go up a tone. “Has something happened to Maggie? – is she okay?”  
“Your wife,” says the Fed with another grin “Is fine. Apart from having married you, at least.”  
“Huh? Whoa, wait, hang on! You can’t just walk onto my property and say something like that. That’s a - that’s an insult. C’mon, man!”   
“Oh, man,” says Frawley. “You are a piece of work, you know that?”  
“Okay, look, you can’t just say stuff like that to me. C’mon. Please! I know I can’t run you off, cause you’re a Federal Agent and that, but c’mon, you gotta tell me what’s going on, haven’t you? I mean, if you’re arresting a guy you still gotta read him his rights, yeah? So surely, you gotta tell me what this is about?”  
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”  
“Look, I don’t understand what the hell this is about!”  
“Are you aware that obstructing a federal investigation is a crime?”  
“What? How is – what is – what? What’s obstructing - what, I mean, how is me not understanding, an obstruction? I don’t understand.”  
“Believe me, every minute you continue to stand there and say you don’t understand is an obstruction. And we both know that. How about this one? Are you aware that knowingly harbouring a fugitive is a crime?”  
“What the fuck?” says Jem.   
He’s determined the guy will not get a rise out of him. But with things like this being said he feels it’s reached the point he can legitimately raise his voice, allow his anger and confusion to show.  
“I guess I can take that as a yes, hmm? So – how’s about we talk about your wife?”  
“You leave Maggie outa this!”  
“I don’t know that I’m going to be able to. She’s Canadian, is that right?”  
“Yeah – but seriously, man, what the hell does that have to do with anything? Okay, maybe her politics are a bit left-of-centre, but Jeezus, we’re not, like, at war with Canada or something, right?”  
“Margaret Anne Mathieson.”  
Frawley leaves the name, and all it implies, hanging in the air for a moment. Waiting to get that reaction that Jem will not grant him. It’s painful, for a moment, to keep this look of confused indignation and anxiety looking natural. Because if the Feds know Maggie’s full name, they know that Mathieson is her maiden name. Yet it’s the name her husband goes by. It’s possibly the weakest point in his cover story and he knows it.  
He won’t rise to it. He won’t, because he won’t give the son of a bitch the satisfaction; but also, because he wouldn’t. James Mathieson would be so used to having married Margaret Mathieson by now that he wouldn’t see for a minute or two that anything was being inferred. So he wouldn’t rise to it.   
Instead he says again “Seriously, I want ya to leave Maggie outa this!”  
“This?”  
“Whatever ‘this’ is, dammit! She’s done nothing wrong. Ya’d better have been tellin’ the truth when ya said she was fine . ‘Cos if she’s in some kinda trouble and ya’ve kept me held up here with this shit when I shoulda been with her, I’ll – I’ll” –   
“You’ll do what?”  
“Jeezus! I dunno! I can’t do anything, ya know that! But ya gotta believe me, she’s done nothin’.”  
“How long have you been married?”  
“Five years. Getting on for six, now. Please – ya gotta stop askin’ me questions. I don’t believe I have to answer all of this when you won’t tell me what this is about. Please, I wanna be a good citizen and all that shit but you can’t just act like this, please, just tell me what’s goin’ on! Please. Tell me, or go. Ya can’t harass me in my own home like this!”  
“We’re not in your home.”  
“This is my yard. I bought this house three years ago. You’re on my property. If you’re not gonna tell me what this is about then I think ya should leave now…”  
“Okay.” Frawley turns to go; then turns back with a smile. “Your accent’s gotten more pronounced just now, did you notice that? ‘Cause I noticed that.”  
“Well, maybe I’m a little tense at the minute? Ya think of that?”  
“Funnily enough, yes. I did.” And Frawley gives him a smile and a nod, and turns, and leaves.  
Alone at last, Jem allows himself to breathe hard and to wish, for just a moment, that he was still the man he once had been. The man who would have put a bullet through the tall Fed’s skull and not even paused to think about it. He knows it’s for the best that he’s no longer capable of doing a thing like that. His whole life now is built around that knowledge. But he can still wish it, for a few minutes.  
He thinks back quickly over the conversation. He hasn’t admitted a thing, hasn’t let on that he knows why Frawley is here or that he is anything other than a total, baffled, rather alarmed innocent. He’s played the role to the very best of his ability. But he knows the guy didn’t believe it; and he knows the guy knew he knew.  
Everything had gone so well at the police department when he had gone in to make a statement, and he’d allowed himself to hope that it would all blow over. They had been okay about his story, and were still too pleased at having caught their man so quick, and relieved that the victim would live, that they hadn’t given him any pressure. The second officer he spoke to had even thanked him for his quick actions. He had saved a life, after all.  
But something had happened to bring the Feds back to him, and it had to stem from that. And so here’s his past come back, hunting the man he’d once been. Determined to have him, trying to spook him. And seemingly threatening Maggie.  
He has no idea what they could be bringing against her. Hell, her papers are in a lot better order than his! She’s got the right to be here, she’s the most honest person he’s ever met – never even shoplifted candy or parked in a no-parking zone for ten. She’s absolutely straight-up. Except, of course, for that one thing. Harbouring a fugitive.  
It’s been so long now, since he ran, that the thought of himself as a fugitive seems vaguely comical. He’s a settled man, a goddam business proprietor, a property owner. He’s well-known locally as a small businessman; he pays his taxes, he volunteers. He’s a pillar of the fuckin’ community! Fugitives don’t own a ride-on motorised mowing machine and a greenhouse and two sets of chest-high rubber waders for pond-cleaning, for Chrissakes.   
James Mathieson, he realises bitterly, would probably go to the PD and complain about being hassled by the Feds. For that matter, Jem Coughlin might have done, too. Jem, for bravado, and James from sheer innocence. But he, who is no longer the one but never entirely the other, is simply not sure he’s a good enough actor to pull that off.  
Which leaves the ball in Frawley’s court.  
In the meantime, he still needs to oil the mowing machine and put it away. He sighs, and puts his head down, and gets on with it. He’s slower than usual, still clumsy from the shock, and has to take care not to catch a finger on the sharp edge of the cutting blade.  
By the time he’s finished his hands have stopped shaking, though, and he lets himself into the house and washes them thoroughly to get rid of the gunk and oil. Then wanders from room to room, looking at his home in a way he’s never had to do before, trying to understand it as somewhere that may come under surveillance. The kitchen and office are both overlooked from the road; the lounge and the bedroom and bathroom, not. The Feds will have long lenses, and long-range microphones; and he has no idea how sophisticated bugging technology is these days. For all he knows, there may already be a tap on his phone, a bug hidden in plain sight in the gravel of his driveway…  
He picks up a Hummert’s catalog and a sheet of file paper, and a biro pen from the office, and shuts himself in the bathroom; sets the taps on the bath running and sits on the toilet with the lid down. He writes hastily, resting the paper on the thick block of the catalog. His upward-sloping hand is even more untidy than usual.  
Maggie sweetheart somethings happened. Please don’t say anything yet. Please just read. I dunno how to tell you. A guy from Charlestown just showed up. A cop. Or really a Fed I think. Hes looking for me. He came to the house. I dunno what to do. Please destroy this after you read it. Use it to light the gas or something. The chances are theyre gonna watch us and try to get enough evidence for a warrant to search the house and bring me in. I dunno how he found me. It’s probly because of that guy I firstaided. That guy that was stabbed. I oughta wish I didn’t do it but I don’t. I hope that’s not gonna turn out to be dumb of me. But I never saved a life before. Except my own maybe you could say. Now I dunno what will happen. He doesn’t have enough on me yet or he woulda arrested me already. My first thought was pack a bag and run. But that’s like a signal say I did it & Im guilty. After everything Ive worked through and everything weve done I don’t wanna give up and go down. And I don’t wanna run out on you. And if I do its like I stick a label on you. Theyd never leave you alone. If you still want me then Im gonna try and fight and beat them at theyre own game. Im gonna stick this in a Hummerts catalog. We have to talk about this without saying anything in case theyre listening. So tell me something about something in the catalog. Like yes I want to get that pruning saw or no I don’t wanna get it. Then we have to play act through it. But whatever happens I want you to know I love you and youre a wonderful woman and Im grateful and glad for knowing you and all the happiness we had together. Ive had 10 good years. Made up for the 9 they took from me. I feel like Im a whole man now & I never was before. Let me know what you think with a yes or a no. J XX  
He slips the paper between two pages of pruning tools, and sets the catalog on the shelf by the window. Then strips off and takes a bath, since he’s run all that hot water anyway, and he’s filthy and sweaty from work.  
He washes slowly, really looking at himself for the first time in years, and realising how much there still is to recognise, if you know what to look for...  
There are the scars, if you know where to check. He’s had most of his tats removed, all but the big Celtic cross that his mom had liked, that he could never bear to get done. And Frawley will recognise his hands. The colour of his eyes is the same, and the shape of his nose. He’s got smile lines now, true, and he’s work-fit, not gym-busting-fit. He doesn’t dress the same, eat the same, drink the same, act the same. He doesn’t live Jem’s life anymore. And Frawley will need something more than just the lookalike stuff.   
Done with washing, he sits in the heat, holding his knees, thinking. He imagines the courtroom scene, and charges being read out. Frawley grinning in the body of the court, Maggie sitting crying as he’s asked “Are you James Coughlin, known as Jem, also known as James Anthony Mathieson?”  
Imagines himself saying yes; or, saying no. Imagines himself saying guilty. Saying not guilty. Fighting a long bitter case. Or going down to the PD right now, to say “I wanna give myself up, I can’t run anymore, I gotta protect my Maggie…”  
No fucking way.  
He leans back and stares up at the ceiling, and closes his eyes against the lack of answers there. Imagines this as the last day of his life, since in a way it is. It’s possible that this is the day he loses everything. After all these years, all this work, all this time getting to be himself and getting used to it, and getting happy with this life that he’s rebuilt from the ground up. He wants to scream. He wants to kill someone, for what is about to be done to him.  
He takes a deep breath and slides under the water, opening his eyes after a moment to stare up again through the surface ripples at the ceiling, blank and useless as heaven above him. He holds his breath, locking it in for as long as he can, and after a time a feeling of tightness begins to gather, in his chest and across the front of his face. He holds on, feeling time slow to a trickle, his heart pounding like a drum in the echo-y space underwater. One by one, silver bubbles begin to rise. He watches them, each one, rising.  
Muffled but audible, the front door slams, and Maggie’s voice calls out.  
Jem sits up with a jolt, the hot water falling from him. He gasps in air, raking his wet hair out of his eyes. He coughs, and shouts, a little hoarsely “I’m in the bathroom!”  
“You gonna be long in there?” Her voice is nearer.  
“I’m havin’ a bath!”  
The door is unlocked, and after a moment it is tried, and opened a crack; Maggie’s head peeks round, dark hair raked back from her face into a sweaty bun.  
“Eh, look at you” she says cheerfully. “Looking comfy in there…”  
She comes inside and stands over him. Her mouth curves into a dirty grin; happily proprietorial, surveying her man like he’s a wonder of the natural world. He looks up at her.  
She’s the embodiment of everything he’s done right or done well in the last ten years. Smiling, trusting, upright Maggie with her forthright faith in him.  
“I really need to go,” she says.  
For a moment, such is his frame of mind, he thinks she is talking of leaving him. Then he recognises her meaning and grins back at her.  
“Go ahead, be my guest!”  
“At least don’t watch!”  
“Aw, c’mon, nothing I ain’t seen before.”  
“Ah, Jamie, don’t watch me piss. That’s just kinky.”  
His grin turns rueful and he looks at the wall. “Okay, sweetheart, my eyes are averted.”  
He listens, keeping his face politely turned away and waiting for her to give him the all-clear. In a minute he knows he will have to ask her to look in the catalog left on the shelf. In a minute. Just a minute more…  
The flush goes, and a little more time passes. A slightly longer time than he expects, and he wonders if she’s reading already. His mouth feels dry at the thought.  
Then with an audible smile she says behind him  
“You can look now.”  
“Are ya decent?”  
“Nope.”  
He looks in surprise, and then in pleasure, and postpones the conversation he’s dreading. She’s stripped off and is standing surveying him again with her hands on her hips.  
“Can I join you?”  
He scoots himself up a little towards the faucet, and watches appreciatively as her long legs step over the side of the tub. She’s tanned and muscular and firm-assed, with a little extra flesh all over, softening her lines. His hands, his body, know this soft warm strength intimately, comfortably. Her knees come up, to either side of his torso, and the water level rises as she settles herself in behind him; her brown arms snake round him and he leans back gratefully into the comfort of her body.  
She is stable and solid, her back against the curve of the tub, and he rests his head in the hollow between her neck and shoulder, folding his own arms over hers. She gives a sigh of contentment as their bodies settle together, and bestows a kiss on his wet hair.  
“I love you, sweetie.”  
“Love you too, babe.”  
He’d like to be able to fall asleep, here where he’s warm and resting, with her loving arms around him and her loving voice in his ear. He’d like to be able to undo this afternoon, and sleep tonight in his wife’s arms without a care, and never need to think about Agent Frawley and his fucking hostility, his snide remarks, his goddam vendetta. Never ever think about the asshole again. Never see him again. Jeezus fuckin’ Christ, if only…  
Since it can’t be, and he knows it, he heaves a sigh and decides to pre-empt her next question, the one she always asks him. It will put off the moment for a little longer, let him rest here in the warmth just a little while more.  
“So, how are you?” he asks. “How was your day?”  
He can hear the smile again, the heedless affection in her voice, as she tells him. She narrates a regular day like countless others, and half-listening he wonders again if this is the last time; perhaps not the end of his life, but the end of the happiness they’ve had together.  
When she finishes describing the designs she’s been working up for a new client, he waits a moment and then sits up and twists within the circle of her arms, to kiss her lips. The hot water sloshes round them both.  
She’s his woman. This is his home, his life. His fuckin’ bathtub. God damn Frawley to hell for wanting to take all this away from him, for things he did ten years ago, in a different life; a life he’s left so far behind, so long ago, it seems like a dream sometimes.  
“I love you so much,” he says to Maggie.   
She is looking at him quizzically and he stands up, gathering himself together as the water streams off his body. Her puzzlement falls away in a look of pure lustful appreciation.  
“God, you’re beautiful,” she says. “I never get over what a fucking beautiful body you have.”  
He’s climbed out and pulled down a towel from the rail, and begun to rub himself dry, but her remark makes him turn. He chuckles and poses, waving the towel coyly and then dropping it to flaunt himself with a wiggle of his ass. She laughs throatily and reaches for him.  
An idea jumps at him and he kneels beside the bathtub, gently batting her hands away. Leans over to kiss her again, taking his time this time, worshipping the mouth that loves him, cradling her face in his big hands. She strokes his biceps, his shoulders, his neck; but when he straightens again it is to draw her hands down and put them in her lap. He reaches for the shower gel  
“You lay back and have a rest, sweetheart. I’ve had a good soak; you relax and let me wash you.”  
“Are you sure? Ooh, I like the sound of this…”  
“You’ve had a hard day too. Here” – he’s unfastening her hair clip, pulling out the band so that her dark curls fall over her shoulders. The ends of each lock go into the water, and he slides one hand behind her head, saying “Here, let me get ya hair properly wet.”  
She leans back, relaxing into his hand’s touch, absolutely trusting of his strength. Green eyes smiling lovingly at him and then slipping closed as he lowers her and dips her right into the bath.  
He looks at her face under the water for a moment. There are tiny air bubbles hanging silver in her nostrils, on her lashes, and her loose hair swirls across her forehead like weed in a river current. She seems totally at peace in his hand. He raises her up again quickly out of this silent baptism; kisses her wet lips again, making her smile, and then strokes the strands of hair back from where they have plastered themselves to her brow, her cheeks, her eyelids.  
He squirts a dab of the vanilla gel into his palm and quickly works it up into foam. Strokes her face gently with one lathered hand, then moves down to her neck, her shoulders, and down each arm. He soaps each of her hands in turn, working his big fingers across the delicate architecture of bone and work-toughened, suntanned skin. Then immerses them, rinsing off the scented foam, and scoops up palmfuls of water to sluice her arms and throat, and finally, with infinite care, her shut, confiding face. With the next drops of gel he soaps her breasts, cupping and caressing their ripe weight. He is still naked, leaning over the side of the bath. His cock stirs a little in pleasure at his task, pushing against the warm enamel surface. He massages each breast gently, and strokes his hands in turn under each arm, round to her back, and then down to the waterline and back around to rub her belly.  
He says “Oops, missed a couple of bits,” and she laughs as his hands return, to soap up and work over her tits again. Her nipples are jewel-hard by the time he starts to pour water over her a second time, rinsing off white suds and bubbles.  
“Jeezus fuckin’ Christ,” he says. “Ya so beautiful…”  
He slides one hand under her right thigh and coaxes her, and she lifts her leg clean out of the water with a whoosh, and points her foot at the ceiling. He massages and rinses her from toes to thigh, and does the same for her left leg. Letting his hands glide over her skin, exploring and worshipping the curved, muscular shapes of her body. He’s never known another person by touch as intimately as this, until her. His fingertips know the uneven bumps of her knees, the ridged place where a puckered scar has whitened in the three years since she fell onto a pair of secateurs and bled messily into a client’s rose bed. He knows the harder skin of her heels and the flaky patch on each elbow; the pale marks of vest straps across her shoulders, the moles and blemishes, the chicken pox scar on her nose. He knows the dark bush between her legs, where his hand now slides; and as she twitches an eyebrow at him he is struck by a memory ten years old. Ten long sweet years, back to the first time he laid her down and stroked her to coming with his fingers, and watched her face as she gave herself to him trustingly, and came to pieces under his touch.  
She reaches up suddenly and catches him by the head, pulling him down into a deep kiss.  
He responds, possessing her mouth and pressing her back, ineluctable, until she surrenders to him again and sinks back, panting, her lips smiling.  
He sits her up and makes her bow her head forward, and squeezes a good amount of shampoo into her wet hair. He works up a lather in the thick tangle and begins to massage her scalp with his hands. He runs his fingers firmly down from the crown of her head, pushing through her hair to the hairline, and then works over her cranium in little circling movements, fingertips pulsing, thumbs pressing and releasing rhythmically. By the time he slides his hands round to the nape of her neck and begins to work on the muscles at the top of her spine she is groaning faintly with pleasure. She’s drawn her knees up, and rests her forehead on them, murmuring “Oh, baby…” softly as he kneads and rubs.  
At length he unhooks the showerhead and sluices warm water over her scalp, stroking away the creamy-white foam of shampoo and smoothing her hair back. She raises her head to look up at him with eyes full of warmth.  
“Feel more relaxed now, babe?” he says in a whisper.  
She smiles happily. “Hell, yeah, I feel good. Honey, I think you missed a talent there. You’d have made a good masseur.”  
“Spend my life touchin’ other women’s bodies, huh?” He’s grinning at the idea and she laughs at his expression.  
“Sweetie, no; just for me! You’re all mine. Baby… Oh baby…” She pulls him to her for another kiss. “I love you, Jamie.”  
He caresses the place on the side of her neck where there’s a neat brown mole. A water trail is running from her hair and fanning over her shoulder, dividing just there.  
“So, sweetie, are you going to dry me and put me to bed now?”  
“I might. I just might…”  
He stands up, quickly picking up his towel, though it’s not easy to get it securely round his waist and tucked in when he’s this aroused. In the end, with Maggie’s helpless giggling causing ripples in the tub beside him, he snorts and abandons the struggle.  
“The hell with it. Not as if ya’ve nevah seen it before…” He fetches a bigger towel, white and fluffy, from the closet and brings it to her; chuckling and shrugging as she licks her lips at the sight of his raging boner.  
She rises out of the water, with streams and curtains of wet pouring down, tanned and beautiful as a goddess emerging from a waterfall of her own creating; and climbs neatly out onto his discarded towel. She waits as he passes the warm fabric round her and enfolds her, then takes the ends from him, crossing her arms over her bosom. She’s a column, wrapped in softness; then she opens the towel again and steps up to him, taking him in her arms.  
He loses himself in her mouth and against her body. Maggie, his Maggie…  
They move slowly out of the room and across the passage to the bedroom. Jem has to go backwards as she pushes him gently, no longer letting him take control. She walks him through the door and over to the bed, him kissing her blindly and stroking her beneath the thick towelling. Her hands touch him, tender and insistent, gliding over his skin that is warm and moist now, and she drops the towel so that it falls trailing behind them. They fall too, onto the bed, bodies arching and pressing together, and she rolls him on top of her quickly and lies smiling up into his eyes. The wet from her hair spreads around her like a dark halo as she sighs at his touch and draws him inside her, welcoming, holding, loving him as he buries himself in her.  
That faint desperate thought is in his mind again, that this may be the last time, though he tries to break it and crush it away. He makes love to her slowly, stretching out every moment, savouring every feeling, every gradual rise in the pitch of pleasure. His hands are trembling as she touches him with a tenderness that once he would never have imagined he could receive.  
She comes, with little breathless murmurs of his name on her lips, and wet pulses gripping on his cock; and he spills himself into her with a moan and hides his face in her neck for a moment. Her warm arms embrace him as he comes down, and they lie still for a while, panting and kissing on the damp sheet. When he lifts himself away it is to lie on his side next to her, his eyes cherishing her familiar profile until she rolls over too, and they look into one another’s eyes again.   
He clings on for a last few seconds of post-coital happiness; clings on to the now and the naked warmth of the present. Her hair is beginning to dry and frizz around her face. He touches the mole on her neck, very gently, wanting never to lose it or this moment.  
But he knows her too well to miss the first quizzical twitch of her eyebrows, as they go on looking at one another and he goes on saying nothing. She’s expecting something, either loving words or sassy, and in a moment she’s going to ask “What’s up?” or something similar, and he will have to tell. If the trick with the note is to work he has to pre-empt her. He lifts his hand quickly from her neck to her face, and presses a finger on her lips.  
Her expression changes; and the bridge is crossed. No way out, now, except to go forward with the plan and pray it works.  
There’s a tiny knot now between her brows; her expression still loving, still secure, but sharpened as she registers the implications of that silencing finger. She blinks, then after a second she puckers her lips and gives his fingertip a quick ghost of a kiss. He takes a deep breath and opens his whole hand, to stroke across her mouth, her soft lips, and then cover them completely for a moment. Still looking into her eyes. His whole gaze trying, begging, that she will understand. Then moves his hand away and sits up, swinging his legs quickly off the bed. He stands and puts a finger to his own lips momentarily before heading to the bathroom and bringing back the Hummerts catalog. He stops in the doorway, looking at his wife sitting up now, naked in their bed; at her large firm breasts and shapely hips, and the little creases at the bottom of her belly. He wishes, with a sharp stab like an arrow, that she could have had children. Her face is anxious and expectant, but not blaming, and she waits on him without pressure. She would have been a fuckin’ wonderful mother.  
He tosses the catalog down onto the bed beside her, looking into her eyes again. Says clearly “There’s something in this Hummerts catalog you ought to see.”  
“Huh? – Oh yeah, what’s that?” Her expression is a study in confusion, but she reaches for the fat book.  
“I put a marker in the page,” Jem says, and turns away.   
He can’t bear to watch her read it. If she is going to say “What the hell?” and blow him out, he’d rather not have to see that storm gather and break over her face. He doesn’t want to be watching at the moment when their life together ends in her eyes.  
He opens the bedroom closet and then the drawers, and digs out clean clothes, pulling them on hastily. Boxer shorts, socks, jeans, a Spartans t-shirt. Keeping his back to Maggie, letting her read and assimilate what has happened, undisturbed.  
He hears the bed creak, and the sound of her footsteps; not coming to him, but leaving the room. His hands are shaking when he looks into the mirror above the dressing table. He wrings them out, claps them together and fans his fingers, then bunches a doubled fist and cracks his knuckles. He has to keep a grip on himself somehow. He glares at his reflection and flattens his tousled hair roughly.  
Maggie reappears, and stands behind him holding his note in her hand. He watches her reflection as she looks around the room, and down at the bed; and then at him. Their eyes meet in the mirror and for a second she looks ready to cry.  
Then she smiles.  
She comes over and slides the sheet of paper quickly onto the dresser in front of him. He looks down at it, and sees her large, sprawling handwriting at the foot of his, filling the last bit of paper.  
Nobody’s taking you away from me.  
He catches his breath, a deep gasp of relief; and her arms come round him from behind and hold him tightly, hugging him as she did earlier when they were bathing. She kisses the back of his neck, the little scar where his Fighting Irish tattoo was taken off, eight years ago in Texas. She’s never known him without his scars. Her lips bless them each time she makes love to him.  
“Yes,” she says now, loud and clear. “I think we should get that, honey. It’s a great pruning saw. It’s the one I want.”  
He turns with a sigh and holds her close.  
“Okay,” he says. “Okay, we’ll do that.”


	3. Chapter three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the past, it's the morning after Jem and Maggie's first night together; in the present, an investigation begins.

Over a huge breakfast of stacked pancakes, bacon and maple syrup, fresh fruit salad and yoghurt, orange juice and strong coffee, they talked. About how she could show him the area, since he was new in town; and she could help him find a place to live, and business premises, and a copy-shop when he was ready to get flyers and business cards made up, and she could give out his card, put up the flyers at work; and he could maybe make her up some window-boxes so she could grow fresh herbs… By the time they got to the parsley and sage, rosemary and thyme, she thought she’d lost him. It was all so friendly, so civilised and cool; but he hadn’t said a word about the previous night; and she didn’t know how to.  
She pictured herself singing “Scarborough Fair” as her next encore, and breaking down over it. She wanted to shout with hurt at the thought.  
She gathered the breakfast things and stacked them in the sink and set the taps running. She was not going to embarrass herself. She would do the dishes like there was nothing wrong, even though it meant losing sight of his face for five of what were possibly the last minutes she’d have with him.  
She didn’t realise he was standing behind her until he suddenly put a hand down either side of her on the edge of the sink, effectively pinning her against the stainless steel. She felt the heat of him against her back, up close, and he said angrily in her ear “Maggie, what’s wrong? Are ya havin’ second thoughts? ‘Cos if ya are, ya just need to tell me and I’m outa here!”  
She wrenched the taps shut and turned, twisting to move within the circle of his arms. “I’m not having second thoughts! – I thought you were, all you’ve talked about is lodgings and window-boxes, like last night didn’t even happen!” –  
“Jeezus. No. Sweetheart, dammit, no! Why would I have second thoughts? Last night was fuckin’ tremendous!” –  
-“and besides, I don’t even know what it would be second thoughts about, ‘cause I don’t know what this is, Jem! – Jamie – if this was simply a great night’s fuck then why are we talking about window-boxes? - and if it’s something else then what? What the hell is it we have here? Is it anything? ‘Cause I don’t know…”  
He took a step back; furrowed brow, parted lips. Visibly angry for a second, and then wounded. “Ya don’t know? Well, I sure as hell don’t! Maggie, baby, oh Jeezus, shit! How am I meant to know? I just arrived in town, I’m stayin’ in a fuckin’ motel, I go to a bar down the street for a drink and there’s this cool band playin’ and I stay to listen and you – you – step up to the mike and sing up a storm and I want ya so much I could fuckin’ die! And I do not know when in my days I have been so scared, because ya could take one look and ya could ruin me, ya could fuckin’ destroy my whole fuckin’ life with one word, but I can’t get away, oh no, I have to stand there and listen to ya sing like it’s more precious to me than fuckin’ breathin! Ya look at me. Ya know me. I’m fuckin’ dead. Ya know me. I try to run, I can’t, ya come out back, ya call me sweetie, ya trust me. Ya fuckin’ take me back to ya place! I’m lost, Maggie, I’m a lost man, I am a lost fuckin’ soul for ya! But I’m lost and I’m found, ‘cos this is the best fuckin’ thing to happen to me in three and a half years! Why would I have second thoughts, ya stupid dumb Canuck?”  
His expression was raw, wide open with the heat of anger and something close to longing. She laid her wet hands on his shoulders. She didn’t know whether the pain or the desire was going to win. She wanted to be closer, to touch the heat in him, fierce with life as she’d always remembered…  
He started to waggle a finger in her face, changed the gesture at the last moment into laying his hand over hers. More gently he said “’Cos if ya were talking about yaself, that I could understand. It would make sense. I’ve served time, I’m a criminal and a thief and a killer, right? I’m a fuckin’ fugitive from justice, far as the world’s concerned. I am not good news. I’m livin’ under a false name, I have false papers, I’m nothin’ but trouble, and ya’ve had trouble, ya’ve just got out of bein’ tied to some shit-stick idiot of a husband, ya don’t need me fuckin’ up ya life. I’m not worth it!”  
And there, with those last words, the pain won over the anger in his face, and for an instant she saw someone very young, very lost, remembered in those eyes. She moved one hand, just an inch, just enough barely to touch the side of his throat, and he shivered at the caress.  
“Not worth it? You put all this effort into trying to turn your life around, yet you say you’re not worth it? When you’ve put all that work in, don’t you think you’re worth more than that old sneer? Don’t you think it’s a good thing you’ve done, to pick up and fix yourself, like that? ‘Cause I do. You’re worth just as much as any other soul on this planet.” The confusion on his face was almost painful. She struggled for words, suddenly angry herself. “You ought to be worth the exact same to yourself as you are to me, James McLoughlin Mathieson, damn you! I cried for you, Jem!”  
“Coughlin. Not McLoughlin.”  
“Sorry.”  
A pause, and he said, stunned, as it sank in “Ya cried for me?”  
“I wanted you and you were dead. And criminal or no you were still a guy with his life ahead of him. Yeah, I cried. I didn’t know the other three, your friends, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t deserve to die, either…” She realised with a jolt that she had not only called him McLoughlin but also – “Oh, God, I’m sorry, I keep calling you Jem, I know it’s meant to be James or, or Jamie or something, but that was your name, it was all I had of you apart from a stupid memory of playing tonsil hockey in a darned alley by a dumpster! It was all I had of you to remember… I’m sorry.”  
“That’s – it’s okay. Baby, it’s okay. Look” – he hesitated, grinning lopsidedly and with eyes still wide-open with feeling – “Look, ya can call me anything ya like, when we’re alone, how’s that sound? Jem or Jamie or – whatevah. Fish-face, fat-face, whatevah ya want…”  
“Go away!”  
She was still laughing, a little shakily, at the idea of calling him fat-face, when he drew her close again.  
“Ya lookin’ all wobbly there, Maggie Mathieson. Baby, listen, I don’t know what this is but I wanna give it a chance to be somethin’. Whether it’s friends or, or, whatevah. I haven’t let myself get close to anyone for so fuckin’ long! So – I dunno – can I buy ya a pizza or somethin’ for lunch, sometime, or somethin’? Huh?”  
The big hands that had lain on her all night were settled on her hips, spreading possessively across the top of her ass. She leaned into his embrace and laid her head down on his shoulder. His body was warm, and then more than warm, pressed against hers.  
Into her ear he said “Say, Gaelic, ya set on doin’ those dishes straight off? ‘Cos there’s other things I’d rather watch ya do…  
“Oh, yeah?” His neck was solid and the arms holding her were powerful. She felt small, actually small and soft, in his arms. It was weird to feel that way; she was five feet nine of solid Caper wench with a singer’s big ribcage. She melted against him and let herself nuzzle into his throat, kissing and then nipping gently.  
He said happily “Yeah…” Running his hands under the hem of her top, stroking her sides, sliding his long thumbs under the band of her bra and working round to the small of her back. She felt him snag the clasp and get it undone, first try this time, and a quiver of triumphant amusement shook him for a second as he worked it loose before he tilted her back and claimed her mouth.  
His tongue slid between her lips, probing gently and then more forcefully, and he tasted of maple syrup and oranges, and as always of ready flesh and hot life. She thrust back at him with her own tongue, and was beaten back, and surrendered into the pleasure of admitting him and feeling him wild and alive against her.  
He scooped both hands down, onto and then under her ass, and lifted her bodily, so that she yelped in surprise, wrapping arms and legs round him tightly to hang on. He carried her across the three yards to the bed and set her down; climbed on, pausing to haul his t-shirt off over his head and then pulling her top and bra away and tossing them aside. He was smirking, actually smirking, as he pushed her down and began to unfasten her jeans, working them and then her panties down over her ass and hips with quick, commanding movements of his hands. She wriggled free, grinning back up at him, wondering what he had in mind. From the shit-eating sinful grin on his face she thought he might be going to go down on her. But he stayed where he was, just looking; master of all he surveyed, and boy did he know it.  
The morning light flooded in through the tall window opposite the bed, gilding his hair and the shapely muscles of his shoulders and back, and the Celtic cross swinging from his neck chain. She reached up to stroke the second cross, the one tattooed on his arm, saying as she had done the previous night “God, you are beautiful…”  
He beamed. “Ya like what ya see, dontcha, Gaelic?”  
“I like it, mo leannan. So very much.”  
He bent in to kiss her again, biting her upper lip, then leaving her panting as he tongued deep into her mouth; and slid one hand between her legs, parting her and seeking her out. She gasped and twitched, her hips bucking instinctively towards him, as he began to make small, dabbing, circling finger movements on her clit. In moments she was murmuring “Ohh…” breathlessly as words deserted her again. He drew back a little, looking down at her with a smile of satisfaction, and fixed the fingertip back in place, circling out in a spiral, outward and then in again, over and over till she was shaking. She could feel the heat and the need to come hard on something, to clench down and come on hot living flesh, growing with every second. She closed her eyes, letting herself fall into the intensity of sensation as into a river of fast-swirling rapids.  
“Look at me!” he ordered her hoarsely. “Keep looking at me!”  
“I – I can’t!” -  
“Look at me!”  
He let go, his probing hand moving away entirely, and she moaned with frustration, forcing her eyes open, focussing with difficulty on the face bent over hers. She was halfway to coming already, just from his touch. His eyes were cloudy with lust and heat but he smiled as she looked up at him, panting.  
“That’s my girl…”  
He went at her with renewed energy, pulsing with alternate fingertips, one to the left of her clit and one directly against it. Her mouth opened in a deep moan of pleasure as waves of heat built inside her. It was as if the entire core of her body was catching fire. Her eyelids began to flutter again.  
“Keep looking at me!” he commanded.  
She forced her eyes to stay open, meeting his again as he played her, taking his cues from her gasps and hitches of breath, the cadence of her moans.  
He shifted his hand, settling his broad thumb on her clit, now rubbing, now stroking, while his fingers probed down, gliding into her wet folds, first one then two penetrating inside her. She started to push herself towards him, thrusting onto his long hard-knuckled fingers.  
“No,” he said, smiling, and shifted his own hips to push her back down. “Not yet, woman...” and then as her eyes began once again to close in ecstasy “No, ya gotta keep looking at me!”  
Eyes and mouth opened both, with a wail of growing pleasure, and she was drowning in his gaze and drowning his hand, her throbbing cunt becoming slippery with wetness. He had propped himself on his free arm and his right hand was beneath her head, tangled in her dark hair. His face hung just above hers. He was breathing hard, his own lips opening and closing unconsciously in a rhythm with her moans and the tender, unrelenting movement of his thumb sliding against her clit, his fingers pushing inside of her. Struggling, closer every minute to being overwhelmed, she tried to stay focussed on his stormy eyes, his soft mouth, the brooding panting lips that smiled and held back from hers and demanded again “Look at me, baby!”  
He crooked his fingers inside and stroked up and down her walls. She writhed as suddenly he hit an exquisite tenderness, and he took his cue from her wild movement and began to work along and around that one spot, on and on until she cried out and lost herself, moaning as the sensation drowned her and took her down. All the while, still, looking into his eyes, his face, seeing his soft lips part in delight as she sank, gasping, into pleasure. He stroked her through wave after wave, her wet cunt clasping him in spasms, every muscle in her body seeming to turn to water or to a shaking like waterweeds in the tide, as she came and came. Helpless, and never once taking her eyes from his. Even when she could no longer focus, when those eyes were just a shining blur in the sunlight, she kept looking.  
It was only when the waves began to decrease in intensity, and his hard, responsive fingers slowed their movement, that he leaned in at last to seize her mouth in a deep kiss; and finally, unable to hold on any longer, she closed her eyes and lost herself in him.  
Heart-piercing minutes later his mouth left hers and she lay panting. She could feel him trailing kisses across her face and throat and breasts; he was whispering, between the kisses, in little bursts of husky words; how beautiful she was, how wet, how soft, how perfect, how unbelievable… She ran her still-shaking hands into his hair as he took one tit into his mouth for a moment, his lips nibbling and sucking gently. The fingers that had worked on her so intently now crept up her belly and ribs, tickling, caressing, and took possession of her other breast, stroking her own wetness across her skin. She shivered, and he stopped. She felt him shift his weight, and bend to lick each of her nipples in turn, then move back up the bed towards her face. He gave her hair a little tug.  
“Hey, gorgeous, ya conscious again yet?”  
Maggie opened her eyes to see him looking down at her possessively. He grinned.  
“Jeezus F Christ, ya sight for sore eyes, I swear. Watching ya come undone for me just now was the sexiest fuckin’ thing I ever seen.”  
She could only murmur wordlessly in reply, smiling into his already familiar face in the quiet sunlit room.  
He raised his left hand and licked the length of the first finger and then the second. Her eyes widened as she realised what he had to be doing. He was grinning appreciatively. She said weakly  
“Go away – is that?” –  
“Oh, Maggie, ya taste good, anyone ever tell ya that? Salty, like ya been in the sea.”  
She sat up, laying her hands on his chest and moving to wrap one leg over his, pressing close to him. He was still in jeans, although he couldn’t have been entirely comfortable, judging by the sizeable bulge she could see and now feel.  
“I thought people only did that in porn…”  
“What?” -  
“Jon never did that.”  
“This Jon of yours didn’t know shit, did he? What kinda fuckin’ moron doesn’t want to know what his woman tastes like? Jeezus!” He tipped her head back and kissed her throat and then her mouth. “Mmm…”  
She could taste the faint touch of her own salt juices on his tongue.  
She slid her arms round his waist and brought her hands to the waistband of his Levis, working her fingers inside, bringing them to the front again, undoing buttons one by one. He broke off to say in a gasp  
“No, baby, this is about you, this is – no – oh – ohh, Jeezus – okay, yes, yes!” –  
She had pushed him on the shoulder and he sank back, only momentarily resisting. She freed his hard length gently, stroking him as she shifted the fabric of his pants and boxers away. He was swollen and erect and shapely, and she was reminded again of a classical statue, some priapic god figure, lying in her bed rock hard and ready for her. He gave a soft moan and then a sound like a sob as she took him into her mouth.  
She held the head of his cock gently, sliding her mouth down to push him against her palate, then drawing back to tongue carefully and precisely along his tip. He gave a jerk at the sensation and a stifled yelp of pleasure. She pushed his hips down, hard, as he had done hers earlier, and repeated the delicate movement of her tongue; then began to alternate a long, sweeping licking and a sliding motion downward, taking him further in and drawing back slowly.  
He whimpered as she took her time, working on him steadily until he was voicing faint anguished sounds on every breath, and she saw how his hands bunched in the crumpled under-sheet, spasming into fists as he fought not to shout aloud or thrust up into her wildly.  
She slid her own hands off his body and meshed her fingers into his for a moment, then guided his left hand up, onto the back of her head. He gripped her, tangling his thick fingers into her hair. She grinned round her mouthful of hot cock and gave him a gentle suck and then another, harder and more intense.  
He choked out a few words; “Don’t – oh, fuck – I’m gonna have to” –  
She let herself slide back up his length, sucking hard all the way, and his voice broke into an inarticulate groan. He clutched hard on her and pushed her back down, and she let herself sink onto his shaft again, relaxing her throat as though about to sing out a long melisma; and felt the hot head of his cock bumping along her soft palate and then touching the back of her throat. Silky pubic hair tickled her nostrils. She exhaled into it, sliding her tongue out at the same time to touch the base of his cock lightly, licking and dabbing quickly and moving away again. He had moaned as she took him all the way in and now his sound deepened to a growl as she slid slowly back, running her tongue up the underside of his shaft, just allowing her teeth to touch the swollen tissue for an instant. He knotted his fingers into her hair and pushed her head down again, and she obliged, moving slightly faster, hearing him moaning as she took him right into her throat again. Twice, three times more, taking him in faster and more forcefully each time.  
He was quivering inside her mouth and she could feel the veins along his shaft throbbing as she licked back up him again. He began to gasp wildly “Stop! Oh, God, Jeezus, fuck, Maggie, I’m gonna – oh – ohh, God!” – and she worked her lips and tongue down onto him again and pushed both hands under his body to grip the clenched muscles of his ass, sucking hard back up his length till he came with a stifled howl, hips arching up from the bed, hot semen squirting into her mouth. She swallowed and sucked, more gently now but inexorable, hearing him groan and seeing his abs flexing as he jerked into her again. The tip of her tongue stroked back tenderly to his slit and she felt a last, fine, hot stream of cum spurting against her. Jem was moaning, choked cries of “Jeezus, fuck, Jeezus, fuck!” escaping him as he collapsed back into the tangled bedding.  
She released him gently and crouched there for a moment more, panting slightly and looking with amazement at him as he softened, spent and flaccid. He really has a remarkably handsome dick, in any condition, she thought, with a warm, idiotic sense of pleasure; and wondered if it would be okay to tell him that.  
She raised her head and looked along his body, and decided it could wait till he was a little less shattered. His eyes were half-shut and he was panting like an overheated engine. The hand in her hair gradually relaxed, and he threw his head back and let out a long sigh of pleasure and a last murmur of “Jeezus, fuck… Ohh, fuck, Maggie…”  
Her own breathing had eased to the point she felt able to speak again, but she didn’t want to disturb this exhausted, happy repletion. She would have liked to kiss every inch of his body and tell him again how beautiful he was and how extraordinary he had made the last twenty-four hours. No, less than that, even. Sweet baby Jesus, it was only eleven a.m. She had looked up and seen him at just after ten the previous night. Not much more than twelve hours ago.  
She had woken beside him that morning and already she wanted him still in her bed come nightfall.  
She stretched out beside him now, smiling contentedly at the contentment she had apparently caused. Jon hadn’t had much time for giving her oral and had seen receiving it chiefly as foreplay before the main event; and Lachie had been downright squeamish about it. It was over twelve years, when she thought about things, since a guy had come in her mouth like that. Handsome Jeremy from Vancouver, at college. He’d had a nice cock, too. Not quite as big as Jem, though…  
His lashes fluttered and he opened his eyes, blinking as if coming up from a deep sleep. Then he turned on his side, facing her, his lips slowly curving into a huge smile of satisfaction.  
“Jeezus, Maggie… Where’d a nice girl like ya learn to give a blow-job like that?”  
“Music school,” she said, dead-pan.  
Jem roared with laughter and reached out to gather her to him and push a hot, sloppy kiss onto and into her mouth. For a second she wondered what he could taste; then she was lost to everything save the heat of him and his tongue hard against hers.  
“Seriously, though,” he said after several increasingly breathless minutes. “The only two chicks I ever knew who could do that – that – ya know – right into their fuckin’ throats like that – well, uh, they were professionals…”  
That made her giggle. She sat up, tucking her legs up on the bed, and ran her fingers across his chest. “Professionals, eh? Well, I am a professionally-trained singer. Seriously. I could sing opera if I wanted. If there was much opera for contraltos, which there isn’t, but if there was… I was at the National Academy in Montreal for three years. And my second study, my instrument, was the flute. So I know how to use my soft palate, and I know how to use my embouchure.”  
“Ya what?”  
“My embouchure. The muscles of my mouth. Lips and tongue are muscles, you know? Em-bouch-ure.”  
“Say that again.”  
“Embouchure.”  
“Om-bo-chor,” he said, and chuckled. “Nope, try again!”  
She said it several more times. He lay back, completely comfortable in his naked skin, with jeans pulled half-down and rucked round his thighs, and bare feet wriggling in the tangled duvet, and repeated the word after her.  
Those perfect lips pouting as he tried to shape the broad French vowels turned her on unforgivably. On the fourth attempt she leaned over and placed a finger across them. “Hush, stop, you are too sexy when you do that! If I jump your bones again we’re never going to leave this bed…”  
“Hell, it’s Saturday, isn’t it? Believe me, ya wanna spend the weekend fuckin’, I’m ya man!”  
“Sweetie, I have to buy groceries and stuff. I need to go to the laundromat. And I seem to recall a pizza lunch being mentioned at some point.”  
“Ya throwin’ me out for groceries and laundry, but I can come back if I’m with pizza, huh? Is that it?”  
“You – you could come with me? If you want? It’s not very interesting, but – if you want. Or – or – I dunno…”  
She was suddenly afraid again that he’d vanish, as he sat up sharply, pulling up his pants and fastening them quickly. He knelt on the bed, facing her, frowning and biting his lip for a moment.  
“Maggie Mathieson, are ya doin’ anything this weekend?”  
“N-no, only, like I said, groceries and that…”  
“Can I – take ya out, someplace, today? That pizza, say, and – I dunno – uh – cinema?”  
“You want to take me to the pictures?”  
“Yeah. I – I don’t know what’s on.”  
“We’ll find something. There’s a multiplex. Jem – Jamie - is this a date?”  
He smirked at her and ran his eyes up and down her body as if he owned her, and said “A movie and a pizza, yeah, I guess that’s a date. Will you come on a date with me, Maggie Mathieson?”  
“Hell, yeah!”

*********************************************************

Frawley sits glaring at the Santa Cruz District Attorney. Hadrian Ferrar is a slim, good-looking guy with a very relaxed style indeed. Not everyone would meet a Federal agent in their garden, beer in hand and dressed in board shorts and a t-shirt with “Club Sea Breeze” written on it.  
The guy is irritatingly sure of himself, too.  
“I’d like to help, you know that I would; but you’ve got to give me something. None of this would convince a jury and you know it.” He gestures around him, at the immaculate lawn and neatly-pruned ficus hedge. “You need to understand, I’ve known James Mathieson for the last five years, and he is the most straight-up guy imaginable. If he’s your fugitive, he’s done a damned good job of hiding it. This entire garden is his work, his and Maggie’s. Look at this place. A bank robber and killer? I mean, c’mon… Most people round here are going to think the same thing. They’re going to say ‘James Mathieson? The gardening guy?’ and they’re going to laugh at the idea…”  
“You’ve seen what I’ve got,” Frawley says angrily, knowing he’s as good as repeating himself. “The print” –  
“- is a partial, and poor quality. And nothing ties it to Mathieson but your say-so.”  
“- the facial recognition” –  
“- which we both know juries don’t always like; half of them think it’s magic and the other half think it’s CGI.”  
“The fact he took his wife’s name” –  
“Well, actually, he didn’t. Check your facts before you try using that as evidence. That’s how they met; apparently he tried the ‘we might be cousins’ line on her in a bar where her band was playing, and she practically blew him out of the water.”  
“Huh. Yeah, I bet. Look, I met the guy. I’d know him anywhere. He’s a thief and a killer and he deserves to rot behind bars.”  
“But he’s a hard-working small businessman who pays guitar at the Irish pub and volunteers in the children’s ward at the local hospital. The man’s a nice guy and his wife is a fucking angel. Listen, I’m a politician, I know I have to be careful here; this could easily be seen as me protecting my gardener, after all! And I know I’m putting you in a difficult position, too; but you’ve got to understand, I need something solid before I can give you a warrant for a phone tap. The strongest thing you’ve got is your own conviction that you’re right, and that’s not evidence.”  
“But I can’t get you more evidence if you won’t give me the warrant!”  
“I’m sorry. I can’t give you the all-clear to bug someone on nothing more than your own hunch. You know that. You’ll have to come up with something else.”  
“I guess I will.”  
“Or give up.”  
Frawley glares at him, disgusted, and he grins.  
“Seriously, I’d recommend giving up. I have to tell you, I just flat can’t believe you’ve got the right guy. Why would your man come here, when he could have been over the border into Canada in a couple of days’ driving? It doesn’t make sense.”  
But it makes sense to Frawley. He knows Jem wouldn’t want to flee the country. He wouldn’t want to cut himself off completely from the chance of going home one day. He wouldn’t just give up.  
Frawley is not a man who likes giving up, either.  
He searches. He takes photographs. He has Lemmon tail the couple, as they go about their lives, taking pictures of them and even, when he can park unnoticed, using a rifle-mike to listen-in and record snatches of their conversations. Conversations which reveal nothing except a happy, equal marriage, a shared love of cooking, and a fondness for energetic noisy sex at the weekends.  
He interviews the Mathiesons’ clients, their neighbours, their former landlords, the man they bought their home from, the man they bought the new workshop from… He learns all about Green Sunshine Gardens, their history as a company, their specialities, their fair prices and good service and aftercare.  
Someone mentions Texas, and he takes Lemmon off the fruitless stalking, and gets him chasing that lead. Finds himself, a week later, at a small college in San Antonio, where James Mathieson did a one year course in advanced practical horticulture. His tutors remember him as very, very quiet, very hard-working, the only older student in that cohort. He kept himself to himself, they say; he was friendly, but didn’t really make friends. He seemed broody sometimes, like things were making him bitter or angry, and he was holding it in so tight it numbed him. “It was like he was scared of himself,” says the man who teaches grass maintenance. “Like he was scared of what he might do if he let himself feel anything.”  
They describe him as okay with lawns, good with pruning and good up a tree, good with a chainsaw; completely uninterested in garden design; and a natural with seedlings and vegetables. A classic case of a green thumb, says the propagation tutor. “My God, the guy could grow garlic from seed, in one season. And his lettuces! – hearts the size of footballs, and a flavour like honey, like crisp green honey.”  
Lettuces like footballs, and good up a tree. It’s hard to equate the dedicated student gardener and the dedicated bank robber. Frawley is frustrated.  
The frustrations go on.  
Someone else mentions Kansas. He tracks down the night school in Kansas City where James Mathieson studied for his high school diploma. Again, everyone who remembers him remembers a quiet man who worked his ass off.  
No-one ever mentions his addictions; his sister was worse, but Coughlin was a user too, a regular with coke and an occasional user of just about every hard drug known to man. At some point, it seems, he got himself cleaned up.  
On a hunch, Frawley visits the local Kansas City Narcotics Anonymous meeting. He finds a group of decent, concerned citizens who think, touchingly, that they are helping him eliminate a good man from suspicion. They think this because they all know that, addict or no, James Mathieson cannot possibly be a criminal. Everyone at the meeting who remembers James says the same things; a troubled guy, but decent, moderately smart, very quiet; obviously had a rough time in the past but never talked about it; a guy who was making a new start, and who was taking getting clean very seriously. Very seriously indeed.  
No-one ever remembers Jem by that name; he was only James, ever. No-one recalls him mentioning where he had lived after leaving his native Boston, and before coming to Kansas.  
The Texas gardening teachers and the NA stalwarts in Kansas City all look at Jem Coughlin’s mug-shots and say “I guess it could be…” But then they say “At least, the eyes are similar; but James had longer hair, his mouth looked different, he was – I dunno – this guy looks so full of shit, James wasn’t like that, I don’t know, I wouldn’t like to say, I don’t think that’s him, no…”  
At the end of a frustrating month Frawley is no closer to having anything concrete. There’s almost a year missing, between Boston and Kansas City. And during that year, Jem Coughlin not only gained a new identity, but seemingly grew into it, so much so that people who met him just twelve months after the Fenway Park job aren’t confident of identifying him.  
No-one ever seems to have been frightened of James Mathieson, which fascinates Frawley. Frightened for him, sometimes – “He was a real mess, under the quiet; you knew he’d come though hell to get here, you’d worry what would happen to him if he fell back there,” says one of the Kansas folk – but never afraid of him. Yet Jem Coughlin was a dangerous man, and one who always seemed to enjoy being known, and feared, for it.  
Frawley thinks, irritably, of how much he would give to know what happened, between the bloody weekend of Fenway Park, and James Mathieson’s first NA meeting, ten months later.  
And then, very occasionally, he begins to wonder if it is just possible he might be wrong…


	4. Chapter four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the past, Jem needs to be sure Maggie knows what she's getting into; in the present, Agent Frawley meets her for the first time.

Late on the Sunday evening of that first weekend, they lay sprawled across Maggie’s bed, both of them naked; side by side, but with fingers entwined, neither one able to let go completely. She was waiting for him to look round at her and say he had to go; trying to school her heart and her mind into acceptance. Every bit of reason in her mind, not to mention every fear and every insecurity, told her this was never going to be a thing that lasted; halfway-reformed or no, he simply wasn’t that kind of guy. She almost hoped he would finish it now with a clean break, like a knife-blow. Leave her quickly and let her start the process of getting over him a second time.  
“Maggie,” Jem said. She stiffened instinctively, feeling it coming, and made herself relax again, consciously, before she turned her head to look at him.  
He wasn’t looking her way; his eyes were fixed on the ceiling, as though the dusty light-fitting was the most fascinating thing he had seen in years.  
“Maggie, baby,” he said. “Ya need to know who I am. I know ya know some, but… Ya need to know what I been, what I did with my life before. I don’t want ya to get hurt, but ya come blundering into my life like a fuckin’ angel, ya so innocent ya scare me. I have to tell ya some stuff.”  
“Okay,” she said slowly after a moment; watching his profile against the uncurtained window.  
“Ya so fuckin’ nice. I like that. I never had a woman that nice before. Ya sweet and kind and ya fun to be around, and ya make me feel good. But I’m not – I’m not a nice man.”  
“Okay…”  
“I’m trouble. I’m workin’ on it, I’m workin’ to not be that guy anymore. I kid myself I’ve made it but I know it’s not for real, not yet. Maybe never will be, not deep down. Christ, I try and I try, but… I promise ya, I am workin’ on it! But ya deserve to know everything, before – I mean, if - if” -  
All the time, as he spoke, his whole manner precise and careful with stress, she was watching him; the creases at the corners of his eyes, the compression of his lips as he paused; the slow jolt of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed before going on.  
“If ya still wanna see me,” he said. “Ya gotta know this stuff.”  
He told her.  
Crimes, drugs, prison time, brute violence he had done and equal violence done to him; whores and dealers, enemies, friends; deaths dealt out and deaths witnessed. Just as he had done on Friday, he talked and talked; and it was all here, the hatred and the loyalty, community and isolation, anger and pain; theft, loss, a life of loss, a life of stealing, a life stolen. The guilt and shame as he remembered the one friend who had cared, and had died to save him. The full extent of the poison unregretted but recognised, the darkness from which he was trying to retrieve one simple last chance, to do as his friend had wanted and dreamed of, and make a new life.  
All the while, all that long, stumbling, bitter narrative through, he did not look at her once. It was as if he wanted to give her every chance to feel shut off; and so, every possibility to cut herself off from him in return. And as if he did not want to see a single one of the thoughts in her eyes as he spoke.  
She lay beside him, looking at him as he talked, keeping her hand resting lightly in his, and listened.  
Some of it she had known already, and some of it he had already told, or hinted at, on Friday night in the bar downtown. Some of it she had guessed.  
Some of it she had not.  
There were shocks, words spoken that left her incredulous. Things he had done, and things that had been done to him. She was horrified and then frightened, and then crippled with pain and pity. It was far worse, overall, than she had realised.  
But he was trying to escape this life, this past. He said it, over and over, with intense seriousness; he was trying.  
As he went on speaking, his tone became harsher and his accent stronger, sharpening by the minute with the strength of the unspoken feelings beneath the words. She saw his jawline grow rigid, softening when he spoke, hardening again each time he paused to think through his next sentence. By the time he finished he was breathing hard and his voice sounded angry almost to the point of violence; but he never moved. Each time his fingers had begun to clench over hers he had stopped, and carefully relaxed them again, always leaving her free to go. Now he lay still, like a saint’s statue waiting for the apocalypse. He still had not looked at her once; his eyes were focussed on the far distance, the other side of the apartment ceiling.  
She waited a good minute after he had finished speaking, to be sure he was done. Marshalling her thoughts, knowing she had to say this right, straight off, unrehearsed. Knowing that he had just shown a degree of faith in her that she had never known before, from anyone; knowing too that this was a moment when one word of support, or one misjudged phrase or over-long pause, could make or break more than just whether she got to sleep with him again.  
She’d never had so much as a scrap of a man’s future in her hands before. Not the smallest iota. She had always been the one doing the trusting, giving herself into someone’s care, hoping not to be found unworthy of consideration, not to be hurt, not to be cast off…  
“James.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “I don’t know what to say. Jamie, thank you for trusting me with this…” He blinked, still not looking at her, and swallowed again. She took a breath, and took courage, and said “Honey, we can’t change what’s past. This is the present; this is where you are now. You’re trying to change; and you are changing. You deserve the chance to start over, even after everything you’ve told me – you still would even after far worse – I believe you still deserve that chance just like anyone else does. You’ve made mistakes and you’re trying to move on. Sweetie, if - if you were still there, I mean there in yourself, not there in Charlestown; if you were still doing that stuff, I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t want to be seen dead with you. But that doesn’t seem to be where you’re at, not at all, not now.” She curled her fingers gently round his, meshing their hands together. “You said your friend Doug wanted to make a new start. Now he can’t, but you’re making one for him. Where I come from, that’s a good thing.”  
He turned his head, at last, and lay looking into her eyes from a few inches away, his face tight-muscled, the pupils of his eyes dark with emotion.  
“I still want to see you,” Maggie said.

************************************************

Frawley stands outside the house again, looking into the large yard and the back lot. He can see the storage shed where he had spoken to Coughlin, and a small greenhouse with shelves full of black plastic trays of baby plants. Between the two is an open trailer, standing unhitched on the rear part of a parking lot large enough for two vehicles, though only one is there today. On the other side of the greenhouse he can make out a large number of young trees in pots, whippy leafy things with purple and white flowers that give off a sweet scent in the sunshine. Of Coughlin, and of his mowing machine, there’s no sign. No sign of anyone at all.  
It would be so easy, just to step inside the store, pick up a few random things and take them. Anything he took was bound to be covered with prints, and he only needs one. But without a warrant, it would be inadmissible; and without something to justify it, he would never get that warrant. Yet every tool, every plant pot, every seed package in the whole damned shed must be plastered with evidence.  
He is jolted from his frustration by a sound from the back of the house. The click of a screen door, then footsteps, and a figure appears, moving towards the greenhouse; a woman carrying another tray of plants. She slides the glass door open and steps inside, and Frawley clears his throat behind her.  
She starts and turns quickly, and the green seedlings all nod their heads in response to her movement. She meets his eye and smiles, immediately. She’s about forty by the look of her, a well-built woman with an attractive, intelligent face; he sees dark hair, strong cheekbones, simple diamond studs sparkling in her ear lobes. Her smile is real and natural; more natural than professional, he thinks, and then remembers she comes from Nova Scotia. Goddam Canadians and their friendly shit.  
“Hi, how are you?” she asks cheerfully.  
He clears his throat again. “Margaret Mathieson?” He finds his badge and flashes it to her.  
“That’s me. How can I help you?”  
Her smile is so warm, it almost disconcerts Frawley. For a moment he can’t place why. He isn’t used to being greeted in such a pleasant manner; mostly people are either alarmed or hostile when they meet him. Margaret Mathieson looks as though she’d like to make him cocoa.  
He pulls out a smile of his own and is uncomfortably aware that it feels rusty.  
“I was looking for your husband, actually. Is he around?”  
“Jamie? He’s oat.”  
For a split second his mind goes blank, wondering what she means, before he identifies the word.  
He says “Ah,” thoughtfully, and hopes he’s covered that moment adequately. Out, not oat. Of course.  
“He’s out on a mowing job for one of our regular clients,” she volunteers. “Pallikar, Santini and Hobson, the lawyers, downtown? There’s a lot of grass out front of their offices and they like their lawns neater than neat, I can tell you. He’ll be back before evening. I can take a message – or perhaps I can help?”  
Perhaps she can, Frawley thinks suddenly. He smiles again and says “Mrs Mathieson, my name is Adam Frawley. I don’t know if your husband talked to you about meeting me – I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago…”  
Her expression has shifted subtly, almost imperceptibly; her face has quietened and her stance has become tighter, more upright. She draws slightly back from him. Her voice is still friendly, but a touch more guarded. She says “Yes. Yes, he did. You worried him, you know. In fact, you freaked him out a bit. I hope you don’t mind me saying…”  
“I’m sorry about that,” Frawley says, conciliatory. Be nice to the nice Canadian, win her over, make her trust you. “It’s not an easy subject to raise with someone.”  
“James told me you wouldn’t tell him the subject. That was what freaked him so much. He said you were weird about talking to him, kind of passive-aggressive.” She doesn’t seem to register Frawley’s blink, his momentary disbelief; it’s not a piece of vocabulary he would have expected from Coughlin. “He said you talked about him harbouring a fugitive. I hope you don’t think I’m an illegal immigrant, Mr Froley?”  
“No,” Frawley says quickly. “It’s not about you, don’t worry. I’m afraid your husband isn’t harbouring a fugitive, he’s suspected of being one.”  
Unexpectedly, this brings back her smile. “Heh, so it’s me doing the harbouring, then, is it?”  
“Something like that, yes. But” –  
“But Jamie isn’t a fugitive! Go away. Heavens above, what a thing… It’s true he’s not from round here, but then no more am I, and I hope moving away from your birthplace isn’t illegal yet.”  
“No, of course not.”  
“So what exactly are you accusing him of, would you mind telling me that? He’s a pretty straight-up guy, you know, so I’m seriously interested to know what he’s supposed to have done.” She sounds cheerful again, as though they’re sharing a good joke.  
“I’m not accusing him of anything,” Frawley says smoothly. “But he’s been connected to a very serious crime that was committed some ten years ago in Boston. I just need to eliminate him from our enquiries, that’s all.”  
“So how come you were so threatening and cagey when you spoke to him last month?”  
He gives a sigh, as low-key and natural as he can make it. “I wasn’t. Mrs Mathieson, your husband was pretty hostile when I approached him. He needs to realise that that isn’t necessarily the best way to make yourself look innocent. All I want is for him to cooperate with the investigation. I didn’t threaten him. I was just trying to get him to talk to me.”  
She thinks, her face calm, gentle in repose. “Uh-huh… I guess it’s true he isn’t exactly fond of cops. I think, where he grew up, it was the kind of area where if you hear a police siren you think ‘Oh shit’, not ‘Yay, here comes the cavalry’. It was a tough district, if you know what I mean.”  
“And how about where you grew up? Do you trust the police, Mrs Mathieson?”  
“Where I grew up? Well, Pleasant Bay was tough too, in its way; but I don’t think I even saw a horseman till I was ten, maybe twelve years old. We didn’t have much crime. Everyone was too busy working and trying not to get killed by their work.”  
There is a pause, and “What the hell kind of work was that?” Frawley asks, intrigued despite himself.  
“Mostly either fishing or lumber. Lumber industry’s got a better safety record, these days, but when I was a kid it was a dangerous profession… Fishing still takes men off before their time, every year. Like I said, a tough place in its way.” Her posture has become more relaxed as she speaks; she turns away for a second to set down the tray of nodding seedlings, then turns back to him. “Jamie’s from Charlestown. That’s a district of Boston. Urban tough isn’t the same as tough on the Île, of course; but it fosters the same kind of attitudes, you know? We have to survive, growing up, not just grow-up; if life isn’t easy and cushy then you learn to handle yourself and watch what you’re doing; how to roll with the punches, come out on top when a big wave breaks over you…”  
She stops, looking out of the glass enclosure at him, thoughtful amid all the green.  
“Why’d you want to know, if I might ask?” she says. “I can’t see why Cap Breton’s of any interest to you…”  
“I’m just intrigued as to what a badass wise-guy from Charlestown and a nice girl from Canada have in common.”  
“James isn’t a bad ass or a wise guy, you know. I’m sorry you think he may have been mixed up in something, but I have to say, I doubt very much but it’s all a misunderstanding. He’s left all that, the tough district, the rough times, it’s all behind him now.”  
There is a pause and then Frawley says carefully “All I need for you to do is talk to your husband. Please, just try; see if you can persuade him to come into the local PD, give us his prints. Maybe he’ll listen to you is what I’m thinking. I’ve kinda gathered he won’t listen to me. But we can still clear this whole thing up in one morning. What do you say?”  
She thinks about it; not a token pause but a protracted, considering one. Finally she sighs. “What can I say? Okay, I’ll talk to him. I’ll try. But I won’t promise anything. He was kind of pissed, the way you spoke to him before, you know? Said you were trying to bully him...”  
Frawley shakes his head, framing an expression to combine rueful world-weariness and apology. She raises a markedly cold eyebrow in response.  
“You may not feel you were acting the bully-boy, but it’s like harassment, eh? It isn’t about the intentions of the person doing it. It’s about them coming from a place of privilege. It’s about how they make the other party feel, just with words and actions they never even think to consider. Isn’t that right? So I don’t think I can promise to bring James around. He feels threatened, even if you didn’t mean it that way. I’ll do my best, I’d like to get this cleared up and behind us; but the bottom line is, I support my husband.”  
“You believe he’s innocent, that the accusation’s a mistake,” Frawley says. “Me, I don’t know either way.” He keeps his tone precise, studiedly neutral. “My job is to find evidence, that’s all. Listen, I don’t mind telling you, I don’t want to spend days chasing after someone who turns out to have nothing to do with this. It’s in everyone’s interest to get things sorted out, wouldn’t you agree?”  
She purses her lips, nodding slightly, thinking about what he’s saying. He would have liked a warmer response, but he still plays his next card as planned; he gives it a pause, and then goes on.  
“The only reason your husband can have for not coming in is if he’s got something to hide. It doesn’t look good for him, doing that.”  
“Ah,” she says, and there’s another pause. Her strong green eyes consider him, calm, quite without hostility. She says “Or maybe he just doesn’t like giving in to bullies.”  
“But I didn’t bully him, Mrs Mathieson. I’m simply doing my job.”  
She smiles, now. All that kind, courteous warmth is back. “You see, that’s what I meant. About actions you never even consider. Mr Froley, you just tried to bully me, just a moment ago. You’re not even aware of it, are you?”  
She steps out of the little greenhouse, slides the glass door shut behind her, and passes him, going back to the house, while he is still trying to work out how many layers there are to this. Is she patronising him, mocking him, warning him? Is she genuinely trying to give him a gentle pointer?  
Does she even realise every word he’s spoken has been carefully calculated and chosen; every word, the bullying included? He simply can’t tell.  
Right on the stoop, she turns, and says  
“I’ll talk to James. It’s the best I can promise.” And she smiles at him again. “Thank you for coming over. I’m sorry for calling you out like that. I’m sure you mean well.”  
The screen door bangs shut behind her.  
Frawley walks slowly back to his car, trying to work out who just won that round, and coming to the uncomfortable conclusion that she did. How much does she know? Does she know everything? Or does she know nothing at all? She seems to read him like the proverbial book; but he has not a clue what is happening in her mind.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next stage of Jem and Maggie's courtship...

They were sitting on one of the benches along the beachside boardwalk, watching the sun sinking and the breakers coming in, and eating take-out from the Chinese place next to the surf store. The evening sunlight picked out a halo of fuzz along Jem’s bare arms, and turned his hair to gold and his eyes to limpid sea-pools.  
Her own eyes, Maggie knew, were screwed up against the sun. She didn’t want to put shades on and mask herself from him. She smiled, and squinted.  
It was their fourth weekend.  
He had found a place inland from her, sharing with three students. Their previous room-mate had been kicked out for dealing crack and they were glad to get a fourth tenant at all, now at the beginning of the summer semester when no-one at college was thinking about moving. If any of them noticed the quizzical grin in the eyes of the man moving in, when they grumbled to him about drugs and the assholes who dealt them, they didn’t say anything.  
Jem’s entire life fitted in the trunk of his car, and he had been moved-in and unpacked in a morning. That same night he had rung her, in high spirits, to say he’d found an empty store with a yard out back, up for rent at a price he could afford. “It’s perfect, I can’t tell ya how perfect, I can’t believe it! It’s like ya brought me luck when ya showed up last weekend. I’m gonna go take a second look at it tomorrow – d’ya wanna come see?”  
She’d explained that she would be at work, and he had called back ten minutes later to say his viewing was arranged for six pm, and if she could make it he’d love for her to be there… So she had gone with him, and he had signed the lease on the store that night.  
That was the first week.  
Two weeks later he had chosen a business name, and painted a sign-board. He was decorating the store, and had bought his first tools and pieces of equipment, and had taken some rough designs to the local copy-shop for them to work up a flyer and a business card for him. And when he wasn’t working, he was spending every free minute with Maggie.  
She knew she was still waiting for it to all go wrong; for the look of astonished delight on his face to grow casual, or accustomed, or blasé; for him to stop seeking her out, make new friends, find his feet in his new home and leave her behind. For the sex to become routine instead of passionate; merely, instead of utterly, physical. Ordinary.  
It didn’t. His touch, his body, his mouth, still set her on fire. She thought about him constantly when they were apart, couldn’t keep her hands off him each time they met; and he seemed equally insatiable. Every time they went out, they ended up in her bed, burning one another alive with passion.  
It was Saturday, and their fourth weekend together. They had had their regular pizza lunch date and then gone back to her place, and he had gone down on her and driven her to screaming with his lips and teeth on her clit, and then his long tongue, agile and forceful in her cunt. She had lain crying afterwards as he kissed her own juices into her skin; and he had worked his way gradually, appreciatively, inside her, and fucked her slowly and tenderly till they were both whimpering, clinging to one another, wrapped tight together.  
And now they were sitting here on the sea front, eating udon and spicy shrimp. She was trying to use her chopsticks properly, enjoying making him laugh at the sight of her. She was slow, and he always ate fast. He finished his serving and began sneaking shrimp from her pot, licking his fingers, with half-lidded eyes fixed on hers. She licked her lips at him in reply and went on eating, giving his knuckles a smack with the chopsticks when he reached out to raid her again.  
“Hands off, greedy!”  
“Aww… I can’t just sit here and watch ya eat and not want some!”  
“You can and you will, if you want dessert…”  
“Oh, is that how it is? I gotta let ya tease me, huh? Woman, dontcha know you’re gonna pay for that?”  
“Mmm…” She sucked in the last noodle and licked her lips again, grinning at him.   
“So. Dessert, huh? What’d ya have in mind?”   
“What do you fancy?”  
“Ya know what I want,” he said, smiling, eying her body lazily.  
“Okay. Ice-cream, then.”  
He moved up the seat to crowd her onto the end, wrapping his arms round her, nuzzling into her neck and laughing. The vibrations of sound purred into her rhythmically and a little wordless groan of pleasure escaped her. She was pinned, held tight as he tipped her back in the air.  
“I could eat ice-cream from here,” he said into her skin. “Right here, mmm…” He began to nibble round her throat and then down, into the front of her blouse. “And here, and here…” His mouth opened on the soft skin at the rise of her breasts and he licked and then bit her gently.  
“Oh God, fuck! Not here! - stop, oh, baby, stop…”  
“If ya want me to stop ya’d better have something good waiting for me back at ya place.” He straightened and lifted her back to the vertical with him, and smirked, licking his lips at her. “Ya know I always get what I want, dontcha, babe?”  
He was right, of course. They went back to the apartment and he began to undress her as soon as the door was shut. She wriggled free, laughing, in her underwear already, to fetch a tub of ice-cream and two spoons, and by the time she turned back to the bed he was lying there waiting for her, naked except for the pair of boxers his cock was already pushing half out of. He smiled lazily.  
“Bring that heah…”  
“You bring that here!”  
He made a face and then giggled. “Nah. I want the ice-cream and I want you! C’mon! It’s time for sweets, baby, I got somethin’ nice waitin’ for ya…”  
“Need me to cool that ‘something’ down for you, sweetie?”  
“Need to get hold of ya, make ya melt with me – aw, c’mere, baby, let me show ya…”  
She sat down beside him, and he grabbed the ice-cream and ripped off the lid, and dug out a large spoonful. “Mmm, chocolate cookie dough, the best!” His big fists practically engulfed the tub and spoon. He moved the first scoop towards her mouth, then pulled it back as she leaned forward, and popped it into his own instead. Maggie pouted and he leaned over to kiss her, a tender peck with a creamy touch of chocolate. He gave her the next spoonful, and again brought his lips to hers, kissing her more forcefully this time. The sweet smooth cold and the heat of his tongue made her shudder with pleasure as he pushed her down into the bed.  
He deposited the next scoop into the hollow of her throat and ate it off her, as he had promised. She was still shivering at the ripples of hot and cold and the rough touch of his tongue when the next spoonful arrived, into the cleft between her breasts. He spread that one around thoroughly before cleaning it off her again. She snaked both hands into his thick hair, letting her fingertips massage his scalp in the same rhythm as his licking, probing tongue.   
“Oh, baby, oh, you’re a bad man, you’re a bad, bad man, oh, that feels so good, baby, don’t stop…”  
She could feel a drop that he had missed, trickling down the underside of her left breast in a liquid tickle. Next second he found it, sweeping it away with wet, rasping strokes.  
It was like being washed by a big cat; a strong rough-haired golden puma pinning her down and purring into her skin.  
He moved down her body; scoop of cold, then his hot mouth working across her. His blunt nose pushed into her belly and he gave a grunt of satisfaction as she clung to him, arching up to meet his inexorable movements.  
“Oh, God, oh, baby, please!”  
She lifted her legs, running one foot along his side, trying to wrap herself round him, but he pushed her down again and worked his fingers under her ass. Quickly he slid her panties down over her hips before spreading her legs apart again.  
“Oh, please, oh, please, I need you to” –   
He pulled away, suddenly, raising his head to look her in the eye with an amused expression. “Shut up, will ya, Maggie? Ya wanna distract me, when I’m so busy down here? Here” – and as she opened her mouth to protest, a large spoonful of ice-cream was stuffed in there. Her whine of frustration vanished in another happy moan. Grinning, Jem drew the spoon back gently as she licked it clean, then placed a finger firmly across her lips. “Shut up, ya hear? I just got to the best bit…”  
“Mmm, hmmm…”  
He pushed his fingers into her mouth, then withdrew and licked them appreciatively; then worked his way back down her body, licking, kissing, sucking, finally biting each soft place in turn. His moist fingertips probed between her legs, fluttering on her clit; he slid them across her folds, working her wetness, dabbling into her and then withdrawing to pulse on her clit again with a steady pressure.  
It was a hot evening, and everywhere her skin touched his she was burning. She ran her hands across his shoulders, over hot muscle slicked with perspiration, and into his sweaty hair again as he sucked on her right breast, nipping and worrying at her. His breathing was fast, arid on her skin. She could feel his erect cock, hard and forge-hot, pressing against her thigh; he rubbed himself against her slowly, the fabric of his boxers straining taut, already damp to the touch. She sighed with pleasure as he dipped his fingers into her again, working slowly inside her as she arched and thrust onto his touch.  
His lips drew away for a second, leaving the sticky skin of her breast, and he pulled his fingers out. Both his hands moved to her thighs, spreading her wide. Next second he gave his most wicked chuckle, and a jolt of ice-cold hit her hot, wet pussy.   
She screamed, shock and ecstasy smacking into her in one melting explosion; and Jem’s voice growled “Oh, my God! So fuckin’ beautiful!”  
He buried his face between her shaking thighs, eating her out with passionate force. Maggie dug her fingers into his scalp, wailing with abandon at the sensation as his long tongue cleaned every scrap of creamy cold out of her creamy body. She was helpless, and he was groaning with enthusiasm as he licked her folds and worked his tongue deep inside her. Her orgasm was growing, moving towards a peak of volcanic heat, and he kept her climbing, leisurely, tormenting her with pleasure...  
When he pulled back, kissing stickily up her belly again, she was achingly close to coming. He began to work his fingers inside her again, crooking them to stroke her walls, and she felt herself going to fire and water, to liquid light, coming in waves, wordless sounds escaping her. He worked eagerly back up her body, his mouth on her ribs, her breasts, her throat, as with fingers inside her and the pad of his thumb on her clit he melted her entirely.  
Coming down from orgasm, throbbing on his hand and feeling him bite tenderly at her neck, she caressed him. “Oh, baby, oh fuck, baby…”  
Jem’s lips trailed back, leaving her skin in a soft, wet kiss, and he shifted his weight, clasping her legs, probing again between their bodies and working quickly to free himself from his shorts. A moan escaped him as the head of his cock pushed into her warm folds, and he thrust himself slowly inside her. He kissed her mouth, hard, his taste hot and salty and sweet, then lay still for a moment, panting, his face inches from hers.   
She found herself giggling with delight at the sight; his mouth and nose and chin were all chocolate-covered and sticky, deliciously messy. He stopped and a crease knotted his brows.  
“Whatcha laughin’ at, huh?” His expression flickered, shifting layers of expression clouding his eyes; anger, hurt, confusion… Suddenly the anger seemed to win. “Ya think I’m funny now?”  
She went on giggling, helpless as the full implications of the state of him struck her, and his look tightened further, into a full-blown glare. He hung over her for a moment, breathing hard, his eyes going cold, and then buried his face in her neck. He pushed into her again, flexing his hips, and began to fuck her, fast and hard. She clung on to him as he pressed his sugary face into her throat. His thick length filled her, grinding against her walls, and he gripped her under the thighs and shoved her legs higher, deepening his thrusts so that she was left groaning helplessly into his rhythm, her body jolting towards the headboard with each rough stroke. He was hurting her, for the first time, ramming into her and slamming her cervix, pushing her legs till her hamstrings ached; but with every thrust he was dragging her deeper into a second helpless collapse of pleasure. She came hard, screaming and then wailing as her walls clenched on him in pulsing waves. He went on pounding roughly into her, his rhythm faster and faster until he came too, muscles shuddering against her and a sharp, angry cry ripped from his throat. For a moment he subsided against her body, panting wildly; then he pulled himself quickly out of her and slumped onto the bed, turning his face away immediately.  
Maggie was still coming down from her own high, and it was a minute or more before she realised he was still gasping. His breathing sounded more ragged even than when he had been fucking her. She shifted onto her side and put an arm across his body, and felt his ribcage heaving.  
Without looking round he said harshly “I’m sorry, okay?”  
“Eh?” She wasn’t sure what he meant. “What? – why?”  
A little grunt of frustrated breath escaped him. He rolled halfway back towards her, so that she could see his profile.  
For an astonished moment she thought he was trying not to cry. His jaw was clenched and he was biting both his lips, sucking in and silencing the sound of those long, desperate breaths. When he spoke, his voice was raw.  
“Why’d ya do that?”  
“Sweetie, what’d I do? What’s wrong – don’t you feel okay?”  
“Why’d ya laugh at me like that?”  
His face swung towards hers suddenly; his expression was a violent torment of anger and despair and grief, all bottled together and tied-down hard. His accent was thick and harsh, far more pronounced than usual.  
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I gotta lil rough back then. But, Jeezus, Maggie, I been tryin’ so hard, three and a half fuckin’ years tryin’ not to be that guy, and I just nearly fuckin’ hit ya! Why’dja laugh at me like that? I don’t wanna be that guy any more – whydja – whydja set me off like that?” His eyes were desperate, two ocean whirlpools of emotion. “And now listen to me, I’m fuckin’ blamin’ ya ‘cos I still can’t hold my fuckin’ tempah, but I let ya in my life, I let ya in and now I can’t – I can’t treat ya right and – if ya blow me out I don’t know wheah I’m gonna go, and – and” –  
“Shush…”  
-“and I’m sorry, okay? I’m fuckin’ sorry! But, fuck, baby, whydja fuckin’ laugh at me?”  
She pushed herself up onto her elbows and leaned over, to kiss his unhappy mouth into silence. When their lips parted he breathed her name again, angry and miserable at once.  
“Maggie, I” –  
“Hush. Sweetie, shush. James, honey… I wasn’t laughing at you. I was laughing ‘cause your face is covered in chocolate. You look like the world’s cutest baby who’s just had his first-ever ice-cream and gotten it all over everywhere.”  
As she spoke his eyes had widened. His lips parted, curving into the hesitant ghost of a smile.  
“I do?” he said in a whisper.  
“You do. You’re adorable, but I just want to lick you all over. And then I thought, ‘if that’s the state of his face, God only knows what my thighs look like’. And I laughed.”  
Jem began to chuckle, then said “Shit,” and bit his lip again. “Oh, shit. Baby, I’m sorry.”  
“And stop with the ‘sorry, sorry’ all the time. Please, sweetheart. You weren’t that rough; not really rough. Not like Jon could be… I am an adult, you know? And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly fragile. I don’t mind a little bit of rough; heck, I wouldn’t be here with you in my bed if I didn’t like you just the way you come, which includes a wee measure of the old rough, if you follow me… Believe me, if I ever want you to stop you’ll know it, ‘cause I’ll be telling you loud and clear. And if you don’t stop then, then I surely will be throwing you out.”  
“Throwin’ me oat, huuh?”  
“Yeah, throwing you out… Baby, I don’t want to do that, you know? We’re good together, you and me, aren’t we?”  
He looked up at her with the little knot of stress back between his brows for a moment, and then smiled hesitantly again.   
“I know I’m good with ya, Maggie. And Jeezus, I sure hope ya good with me.”  
“Oh, honey, yes…”  
She kissed him again, as long and as deep as keeping-on breathing would allow.  
“Now, come on out of this bed and get yourself into my shower, you are seriously all chocolate from top to toe. Let’s get you and me cleaned up.”  
“We havin’ a shower now, huh?”  
“Yeah, into the shower with you. You know you like it in the shower.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frawley slowly tightens the net; and we learn a bit more about Jem and Maggie's courtship. NB We go from present-day to past and back again in this chapter.

He’s out on the back lot, watering fourteen lilac saplings, the next time Frawley appears. Since he and Maggie got left with the lilacs last year by a client who cancelled, they’ve managed to re-home ten of the original twenty-four by offering buy one, get one free to their other customers. In time, with luck, he knows they’ll fill the gardens of Capitola with lilac, and empty their own. But he’s grown fond of it now. Moving along the line of pots with the hose in his hand and water splashing merrily about his flip flops he imagines a bigger garden of their own, in a year or two, and lilacs right outside the door so Maggie can smell the blossom when she steps out.  
He hears a car stop and a door slam, and barely registers it, thinking nothing but lilac trees until the voice speaks, right behind him.  
“Coughlin. Hey, Coughlin, look at me when I’m speaking to you!”  
Jem swallows a jolt of nausea. This, again, is it? He gives it a second’s hesitation, then turns to look over his shoulder.  
“Huh?” he says, and blinks and goes on, pitching his voice on the borders of surliness. “Oh. It’s you again.”  
“Yeah, it’s me. What’re you doing there, Coughlin?”  
“Watering. Hey, look, mister – I’m sorry, I forgot your name, but – mister, are you gonna tell me what’s goin’ on, this time? Or are we just gonna have another weird thing, like last month?”  
He’s wearing grass-stained jeans and a tee-shirt from O’Neill’s Surf Shop, and is armed only with the hose and sprinkler nozzle. Frawley is suited and glaring and probably carrying at least two pieces on him. Yet his scowl suggests he doesn’t feel entirely at an advantage.  
“A ‘weird thing’?” Frawley says, sour.  
“Yeah. You know…” He shuts off the nozzle, so the water slows to a trickle and stops. “I know you came back and spoke to my wife as well, after I’d asked you to leave; she does talk to me, you know. She says you told her I’d been accused of a crime.”  
No answer, only a slight raised eyebrow. He sighs.  
“Aw, mister, give me a break… Look. Look, you just called me – Laughlin? Lochlan? That’s not my name. Is this some kind of mistaken identity thing? ‘Cos that’s what it looks like to me.”  
“So,” says Frawley. “You’re telling me the name Coughlin means nothing to you?”  
He shakes his head. “Nope, nothing.”  
“How about McGloan? How about Eldon? Or MacRay?” Frawley’s eyes have narrowed slightly as he waits to pounce.  
“No,” Jem says simply. “Sorry…” He’s sweating, but it’s a hot day in mid-July, it’s not unnatural to sweat. He hesitates, letting his brow crease for a second. “Hey, those are all Irish names. Is that what this is about? I’ve never made a secret of being Irish-American, but I didn’t think there was anything shameful in that.”  
“You’ve never heard the name Doug MacRay?”  
“I’m sorry, no. What did he do?”  
“He’s dead.”  
“Uh, well – I’m sorry… Was he a friend of yours? Is that why you’re bein’ like this?”  
“He was a friend of yours, Coughlin. I don’t care how good an actor you’ve become, I know the truth.”  
“Hey, now you’re freaking me out. Why’dja have to keep doin’ this?”  
A pause. Frawley looks, as always, irritated and inflexible, like he has a bamboo cane up his ass. He says  
“So who are you, then, if you’re not Jem Coughlin? Tell me that. Tell me all about yourself, come on!”  
“Fuck you, no. Why should I do your fuckin’ job for you? Do your own research.”  
“You’re obstructing me again, Coughlin. Don’t you realise how fucking suspicious that looks?”  
“My name is not Laughlin, and I’m sorry but I don’t see why the hell I should kneel down and suck it for you. Do your own fuckin’ job, don’t tell me I have to. You’re a Fed, for Chrissakes. Why’ve I got to stand here and let you bully me, and say ‘Oh yessir, I was born on such-and-such a street, I went to such-and-such a school, my dad died when I was so many years old’? You get off on the power thing, don’t ya? You can find out anything ya wanna know about me with a single phone call, and we both know it! You can do a fuckin’ background check. So do one.”  
He’s taking a gamble, but he’s fairly sure that this is what James Mathieson would say; James Mathieson who would not know that he has almost no background to check in the first place. He goes on after a pause “You can prob’ly get to see my IRS returns and everything. Jeezus, I bet you already did. I bet that’s what this is all about, ‘cos you know how much fuckin’ money Maggie and me are makin’. You’ve seen this mansion of ours, you’ve seen our fuckin’ Ferrari, and it don’t seem right to ya, do it? It don’t add up, guy like me, working class boy from Charlestown, runnin’ my own business, do it? I mean, I gotta be a meth dealer on the side at least, huh?”  
He gestures a little wildly at the run-down house and the workaday truck in the driveway. There is a pause, and he huffs in discontentment and starts to turn back to the hosepipe and the lilacs.  
“Don’t you want to know what happened to Doug?” says Frawley.  
“But I don’t know the guy,” Jem says, and lets a very sincere misery colour his words. For a second he’s glad he turned away, hearing himself deny that name, that friendship, that brotherhood. Like Judas; but he’s fighting for his life here. Doug would understand that, surely. He feels slightly nauseous again, just for a second.  
He draws a deep breath and turns back with a sigh. “Okay, okay, whatevah. You’re gonna tell me anyway, aren’t you? What happened to this poor guy, then?”  
There’s no answer and after a moment more he adds “Jeezus fuckin’ Christ, am I supposed to have killed him? Is that what this is about? – this guy Laughlin, is he a murderer?”  
“Jem Coughlin is a murderer. Amongst other things.”  
“Oh, Jeezus… And you’re saying he killed a guy was a friend of his? Fuck, that’s… that’s mental… Jeezus. Did he – did he kill those other people, too?”  
“Who?”  
“You said two other names. McGloan and something. Is your man a fuckin’ serial killer? ‘Cos, Jeezus, fuck, man, I mean – Jeezus…”  
“He killed them all, or as good as. His three best friends. Not to mention” – and Frawley rattles off three more names.  
He doesn’t recognise the first two and has no idea where Frawley got them from; but the last is the name he’s wanted never to hear again, the one he’s remembered for more than twenty years. He shivers for a second at the thought. Right at the last moment, he had closed his eyes, as he pulled the trigger and blew off the back of a boy’s head. No more than a boy himself… The sick feeling in his gut throbs and punches a little harder at the memory.  
“He killed six people, this guy?” he says weakly. “Oh, God… Well, I guess, at least, that is… I can kinda see why ya wanna catch him…”  
Frawley blinks, a miniscule hesitation before he carries on, in the same taunting tone. “Don’t you want to know what else you did?”  
“Fuck, there’s more?”  
“Yes, there is. Can’t you guess? C’mon, Coughlin, take a guess on it!”  
“No!” Jem protests, letting himself glare back at last. “No, you c’mon, man! This – this is sick.”  
“You’re a thief and a killer, Coughlin.”  
“This is harassment, you can’t say things like that!”  
“You robbed banks. You robbed bread trucks. You shot your way out of your last job and left your friends to die. And you stand in front of me now and say ‘police harassment’? Really, Coughlin? Are you really gonna go there?”  
“I – I” – Jem realises he is breathing hard, almost panting; but then, he’s getting some mighty aggressive talk, right in his face. Frawley is barely three feet away, leaning down a little to shout at him the more closely. This is harassment, this attitude; hell, it would be intimidating coming from anyone, let alone a large, armed Federal Special Agent on the verge of losing his temper. The civilised milquetoast that is James Mathieson would certainly be quaking.   
Another thing occurs to him as he realises that; the slang Frawley is using is too specific. He breaks off what he was about to say. “I – what? Did ya say this guy – robbed a bread truck?”   
“Yeah. You know what I mean.”  
“No, fuck you, I don’t. That doesn’t make any sense. What the hell is a bread truck if it isn’t a fuckin’ bread truck? Are you telling me someone would rob a bread delivery who robbed banks the rest of the time, robbed banks and fuckin’ killed people? You are insane, mister, you’re – you’re weird - and I – I would like you to leave me and my wife alone.”  
“You’re the one who’s insane, trying to bluff your way out of this.”  
“Nothin’ I say is gonna make the blindest fuckin’ difference to you, is it? So what the hell can I do?”  
“You can shut the fuck up and give yourself up!”  
“For what?”  
“For Fenway Park and three and a half million, and two dead fuckin’ police officers, is what!”  
“Ah, ya nuts, ya know? Fuckin’ nuts. Leave me alone, leave us alone, for fuck’s sake. Please!”  
“Eldon,” Frawley says. “McGloan. MacRay.”  
He waits a minute more, seemingly trying to stare Jem down. Jem stares right back at him and says quietly “I’m not your man. Please, leave me the fuck alone!”  
He stands his ground, frowning in anxiety but meeting the other man’s gaze. He hopes his expression is nearer pleading than angry, though a touch of anger wouldn’t hurt, either. He is James Mathieson and he is being harassed; he has a right to be angry. But if a pleading look and a wincing touch of desperation in his eyes will get the son of a bitch off his back the sooner, so be it. He’s not too proud to play whatever strokes the game demands.  
Frawley blinks again and abruptly turns away. He walks back to his car, shoes grinding on the gravel, and gets in, slamming the door violently.  
Jem watches until the car turns the corner and goes out of sight. His hands gripping the watering nozzle are white and shaking. He shuts his eyes for a moment and tries to take deep breaths.   
He wonders how long Frawley can keep this up; and how long he can hold out, without attacking the guy.  
Then he winds up the hose and puts it away on its hook in the store, next to the water tap. He gets a soap spray and checks the lilacs for aphids, because it needs to be done, and he still has to try and live his life.

**************************************************

Four months in, she began helping him with his book-keeping. He admitted with a wry grin that he had never in his life had any dealings with the IRS, though he could show her a pile of paperwork, an apparent complete past tax history. Faked, of course. She didn’t ask how, or where the documents came from. Since that one evening when he had poured out his past to her, she had never asked for more details. She preferred not to know. Over the weeks and months she had become more and more convinced of his genuineness; he really was trying to have a regular life, one lived in the open and not in the dark corners and interstices of society. And that was all that mattered to her.   
But in all his previous dealings, all those so-thoroughly less-than-legal activities that they never discussed again, he’d never once kept a sales ledger or any record of income and outgoings. He’d never held on to receipts for expenses, nor for materials and tools purchased; he’d never claimed for power and heating costs; and he’d never done a tax return.   
She helped him get everything as tidy and proper-looking as possible, to get every detail right, sort out irregularities and make it all as simple as could be managed; and Green Sunshine Gardens submitted its first tax return successfully. James Mathieson, for the first time in his existence, received a bill from the IRS, and James Coughlin pulled a face and swore, then laughed at himself, and paid up.  
Five months in, one weekend, he had an urgent job, and instead of simply saying he couldn’t see her till the evening, he asked, almost shyly, if she would like to join him at his work.   
“Ya could see what I do, how I’m earnin’ all this honest money of mine – whatcha say?”  
She went with him to a plant centre and helped him choose eighteen trays of flowering annuals for a parterre scheme in front of an office building; then helped him lay the pots out, plan a simple design to make the most of the colour contrasts, and finally, on her hands and knees in the evening sun, plant them out. Her back ached by the time they were done, but seeing the neat blocks of colour, lobelia and alyssum and monkey-flower massed in a carpet of blooms, she felt a wave of satisfaction.   
Jem came up beside her and put his arm around her sunburnt shoulders. “Look at that; Maggie, ya a natural. Beautiful work. Only - ya kinda sweaty now. I guess I’m gonna have to help ya shower when we get home…”  
Home. He was still nominally renting his own place, but spent more and more of his time at hers. Strangely, neither of them found the studio flat cramped, though she had often thought it so before he arrived in her life. Now, she supposed, she had more interesting things to think about.   
Six months in, when the lease on the students’ apartment expired, he moved in with her full time. By then neither of them could imagine any other solution to the situation. They were already practically living together, so why make a fuss and claim it was a big step? It wasn’t; it was an obvious step, a logical step, and once she had suggested it, they barely discussed the matter further. He simply packed his life into the trunk of his car one more time and drove the six blocks to her apartment building, and unpacked himself into the spaces she had created. Now he was there at her side every morning when she woke, as she had dreamed of having him, that first morning together.   
The window boxes he had built her were full of thriving green herbs and scarlet pelargoniums, and sometimes in the evenings they would set up a cheap tin barbecue and a couple of folding stools on the fire-escape, and pretend they were eating on the balcony of a smart resort hotel.  
At some point, though afterwards she could never be entirely precise as to when, their energetic sex life had changed. No less passionate, no less enthusiastic; but where at first they had simply been ripping one another’s clothes off and pleasuring one another, fast and hard and as thoroughly and as inventively as possible, now they were taking their time, each time. Long minutes would pass when they just kissed, and looked into one another’s eyes, and kissed again, without a sound. At times they seemed to have gone beyond any need for words. The change was imperceptible, but no less unmistakable for that; they were no longer fucking one another, but making love. Love, needing neither permission, nor encouragement, nor explanation, but needing to be made and remade regularly, as daily bread must be baked, as a garden must be tended.  
Most weekends, now, she was helping him out with the gardening. She couldn’t afford to take the kind of professional study course he had done, but she could learn from watching him, and he was a good instructor, clear and practical. To Jem’s delight they found she had a real flair for design, the one area where he had no special aptitude, and pretty soon any evenings she wasn’t out performing with the band she was spending drawing up ideas for him to show his clients. She bought a basic watercolour box and began to produce plans and sketches; dense layered plantings or classical simplicity, outdoor room or jungle oasis, native flora or exotics, jewel colours or cool greens...   
The business was going well. Jem had priced his services sensibly and made a speciality of ensuring every customer also got an excellent aftercare package. No trees he planted, no lawns he turfed, were going to die for want of a follow-up visit or two and a simple crib sheet of care tips. There was no other gardening company in the Capitola area and after eight months Green Sunshine Gardens was thriving. A fat appointments diary, A4, page-to-a-day, sat beside the telephone on the small kitchenette table, seemingly permanently open to jot in a new client’s details or the dates for follow-up visits. The small store on the edge of town was becoming crowded as he started trying to grow more unusual plants to go with Maggie’s designs. The mowing machine and the racks of tools were squashed to one side to accommodate a row of windowsill propagators and then a set of staging for a dozen seed trays.   
Ten months in, he asked Maggie if she would consider cutting her office hours to part time and helping him two days a week.   
The following month, she quit the office job altogether. It was springtime, everyone was thinking about plants and gardens and business was booming. It was all they could do to keep up with the new clients. Come winter, they decided, Maggie would get another part-time job of some sort, but for now the most important thing was to fulfil every new contract as well as possible, and things were so busy that that would mean two pairs of hands.  
Twelve months to the day after Jem had started up his first ever legitimate business endeavour, they went into partnership as joint proprietors. Once the paperwork was all signed, everything legal and finalised, they went out for a pizza to celebrate.   
They put away a bottle of white zinfandel with their meal, laughing and joking and toasting the next twelve months of successful trading. When the waitress brought the dessert card, Jem ordered two glasses of champagne to go with their sweet course.  
“I want to make a proper splash for you, honey. You’ve made the biggest difference, you’ve been the one thing that helped me the most, this last year.”  
He had been working on smoothing out his accent, lately. At first it had seemed bizarre to hear him say “you” and “year” instead of “ya” and “yiah”. The long vowels sounded strained at first as he voiced each word consciously. These days the sharp Boston accent came and went a little unpredictably most of the time. Sometimes he didn’t bother trying to hide it, as though it was all too much of an effort and he wanted to relax and forget about trying; but at other times he’d get into his stride and his voice would sound quite natural; you, your, here, there.... The California vowels were gradually creeping in.   
She wished she could change her own accented speech with as much ease, though when she tried to emulate him he had been horrified and told her “Baby, no, ya – you’re – okay, you’re the exotic flower, here. You sound foreign and interesting and all that stuff. You ain’t gotta work on nothin’. Me, I still sound like a tough guy from the Town. I see people blink sometimes and I feel like they’re thinkin’ ‘This man sounds like he’s fuckin’ dangerous’. But I’m not that guy anymore. I wanna sound like I know what I’m doin’ with pruning shears, not with a semi-automatic.”  
Now he waited while their glasses were poured, the wine golden, sparkling with pale chains of bubbles in the two crystal flutes. He reached across the table and took her hand, his calloused palm warm against her fingers.  
“This has been the best year of my life,” he said quietly. “The best evah. Ever.”  
The waitress brought two slices of pie, one banoffee, one chocolate pecan, each with a generous scoop of creamy vanilla ice on the side. She smiled when she saw they were holding hands, and turned to go. As she moved away, Jem suddenly stood up, looking around as if he’d mislaid something.  
“That reminds me, there’s somethin’ I was meanin’ to ask ya. Damn it, where’d I put that thing?” He was patting his jeans pockets as he spoke. “Maybe they got one heah I could borrow…” he said as if to himself, then looked round for the waitress and called “Miss? Have you got a?” –   
The girl reappeared, lightning quick, grinning hugely as she passed him a small brown paper padded envelope.  
“What the heck have you been doing?” Maggie said, mystified.  
“Well, uh, nothin’ really, just” – he had opened the package and slid his hand inside, and now he tossed the wrapping onto the table next to his plate – “just this” – and he went down on one knee, right there in the middle of the pizzeria. “Maggie Mathieson, will ya marry me?”  
He was holding up a ring, a narrow band of white gold, worked into a skein of leaves and set with a small green gemstone.   
Maggie gaped, and could not get her mouth to close. For a moment the only sound she could make was an astonished “Oh!” She looked at the ring, at Jem, at the ring again. “Oh!”   
His eyes were just starting to darken with worry, and the little crease she knew so well appeared between his brows. She swallowed hard, trying to frame the words. At least swallowing meant she got her trap shut enough to allow her stunned smile to show.   
“Oh, James, oh, James, Jamie, sweetie… Oh, sweetie, yes, yes, yes…”  
The huge wicked grin she loved lit up his face; he caught hold of her left hand and slid the ring onto the third finger. His grin widened still further and in an undertone he hissed to her “Ah, thank fuck, it fits!”  
He was chuckling as he pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms round her.   
The waitress and the other diners applauded.  
“Sweetie, Jamie,” Maggie whispered. At last, at last, she could say it to him. “Oh, Jamie, I love you…”   
It was the first time she had said the words since the earliest days of her marriage to Jon Cable. A more different man, a more different set of circumstances, and a more different emotion, it was hard to imagine.   
Jem drew back, looking into her eyes with a rapturous smile on his face.  
“I love ya too. I’m gonna make ya so happy. I’m gonna make ya so proud of me. I love ya so much, Maggie, and ya’ve made me the happiest man in the whole goddam fuckin’ US of A tonight.”   
Despite all her best efforts she started to cry, and he began kissing her face and her eyes, kissing the tears away and murmuring “Sweetheart, honey, I love ya, don’t cry, baby don’t cry…”  
“These are happy tears,” Maggie said. Her voice cracked in a loud sob on the word ‘happy’. “They are, I swear, they’re happy tears. Oh, Jamie, I love you so much.”  
“I know ya do. Oh, my sweet Maggie. Have some more champagne. Don’t cry, baby. Hey, look at this, our ice-creams are meltin’…” Still kissing her, he steered her back to her seat and sat her down with a bump, looking lovingly down at her as she raised her head to him. His own eyes were shining, and he seemed to be blinking more often than normal.   
Keeping her newly-ringed hand in one of his, he sat down again facing her and picked up his spoon. “Don’t wanna waste dessert, huh? Maybe we can have more when we get home?”  
The vanilla ice was mostly liquid by now, cool sweetness soaking into her pie crust; she ate and smiled and held on to his hand, and he ate and smiled and held on to her. The other diners started coming over to offer congratulations, and then the staff. The waitress who had helped him was beaming like Cinderella’s fairy godmother. They finished their glasses of champagne, and a whole new bottle appeared on the table, with the compliments of the house; so they had another glass and carried the remainder back to finish celebrating in the privacy of their own home, and their own bed.  
It was a very simple wedding, six months later at the local court house. It was the fall; more or less five years after they had first met.   
Five years after Maggie had resisted the urge to fuck him in an alley, and promised to meet him the next week; five years after she had told her friend Colette he wasn’t marriage material; and had reeled out of the pub three days later, knowing him dead and feeling sick with grief and shock.   
Five years after Jem had lost his whole world; the man he called his brother, the rest of his family and friends, his work, his home, everything he had loved, everything he had thought most inseparably part of his life.   
Now he stood facing the woman who had sung to him that night before Fenway Park, and spoke a vow, in a quiet, steady voice. He put a second plain ring on her finger beside the fancy band with the emerald, and kept his own hand steady as she slid the matching ring over his big knuckles. He leaned in to kiss his bride tenderly, and as their lips parted she murmured “I’m going to look after you like you deserve, I’m going to make you so happy; I love you, Jamie…” and saw his smile broaden into a glow of happiness. Maggie’s father wiped away a tear and their handful of guests (the guys from Caerlaverock, some of her colleagues from the office job she had quit in the spring, a dozen of their more regular clients) clapped gently before gathering round to embrace them and offer congratulations.   
The wedding photographs were taken on the seafront boardwalk, in sparkling sunlight and a fresh autumn breeze that mussed everyone’s hair. The wedding breakfast was at the same pizzeria where they had gotten engaged.   
And then they went home, to the tiny studio apartment, and the rest of their lives. 

**********************************

When Frawley gets back to the PD he finds Lemmon waiting for him with another set of photos. The kid has been back on surveillance for the past week, tailing Jem and taking long-lens pictures again.  
Frawley looks through them quickly, but as usual there’s nothing. He sighs.  
“If you wanted to be a photo-journalist, you’d have some good material here. Or a paparazzi.”  
Lemmon smiles hopefully at what must sound, to his puppy-eager ears, like praise. Frawley sighs again.  
“I’m sorry, that’s not really a good thing, you know? We don’t need pictures of Coughlin cutting grass and digging holes and – whatever the hell he’s doing here” –  
“Cleaning a fountain filter system, I think. That thing he’s holding was full of leaves and” –  
-“Don’t get interested, kid, for Christ’s sake! We don’t want a photo-story for Time Magazine” – he flips irritably to the last three shots; the Coughlins in their kitchen, cooking together, talking and laughing over a glass of wine – “The Honest All-American Small Family Businessman and his Lovely Wife, and their happy fucking home life! Shit! Lemmon, we’ve got to find something. I’m starting to think we’re not going to get him after all.”  
Lemmon gapes. “Are you serious? We’ve been here over a month – we’ve really got nothing?”  
Frawley would like to lie down on the floor and drum his heels like a two-year-old. He would like to scream, and beat his fists on the desk and throw things. He would like to have Jem Coughlin and his look of baffled innocence in front of him, cuffed and someplace private, someplace where they wouldn’t be interrupted while he beats the lying fuck to a pulp.  
He’s never considered himself a violent man, but the thought of all that Coughlin has gotten away with, over the years; the thought of the two officers who died after the Fenway robbery with Coughlin’s fucking bullets in them; and all of that money, all that fucking money… And then that piece of shit sits drinking and smiling and laughing about him, with his beautiful piece of Canadian ass, while he and Lemmon sweat blood trying to get the evidence they need.  
“I’m going to talk to the wife again,” he says. “And then this evening I want you to take out that long-mike, try to record them again. I know the quality’s shit, but it’s all we can get. Someday they’ve going to have to talk about this. We keep up the pressure on this one. We don’t give up.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frawley keeps up the pressure, but he isn't immune to pressure himself.

He waits in the afternoon heat, opposite the house, till he sees Coughlin drive away in the truck. The second vehicle is back and was when he arrived. He hasn’t seen her yet, but this means the chances are good that she’s there. He holds on for ten, to give her husband plenty of time to be gone, and then gets out of the car. He goes to the front door, rings the bell, waits. After a moment he hears footsteps, and the inner door opens.  
Margaret Mathieson regards him levelly through the meshes of the outer screen door. Her face is as calm as a lake for a moment. The she raises one eyebrow very slightly, and reaches forward to undo the latch.  
“Yourself again, eh?” she says. “How are you?”  
“Mrs Mathieson, can we talk, please?”  
“Well, sure. But I don’t know how much use it will be, if I’m honest. I spoke with my husband, the first time you came. Like you asked me to. He’s really not willing to come in, you know?”   
She waits for an answer. Frawley waits for her to go on. She gives him a full half minute, then quirks that eyebrow again. It strikes him again that she’s completely unafraid to show she’s reading his moves.  
“I think you do know, don’t you? Seeing as you came here and had another go at him just this morning… He’s been telling me all about it over lunch. He’s gone out now to see a client, so you’ve just missed him. But maybe you know that too…”  
Frawley sighs. “Yeah, you’re right, I do. Listen, will you give me a chance here? I’m simply trying to do my job. The things your husband is accused of are pretty serious” –   
“Yeah, he told me. Six murders and three robberies. That’s – that’s bad stuff, I do agree…”  
“Can I come in?” he asks at last, since she still isn’t offering; is, indeed, blocking the whole door with her statuesque body.  
Both eyebrows twitch this time. “Aren’t I supposed to ask if you have a warrant at this point?”  
“I don’t have a warrant. Please, can I just come inside and talk to you? I’m not searching the place, so I don’t technically need a warrant, and you can invite me inside without betraying anything. I get that you’re guarded around me, you want to protect your husband, it’s okay, I get it. But you don’t need to worry about letting me inside. You think I’m going to take things for prints, that’s my guess; but there’d be no point, ‘cause without a warrant they’d be inadmissible anyway.”  
“Plus, that would be theft,” she says, deadpan. Then, with a smile “You know, it had never occurred to me you might even think of doing that. Okay, Mr Froley, you can come in, I guess. Thank you for asking so politely.”  
She steps back into the hallway, and admits him.  
He may not be going to take anything, but that doesn’t stop him looking. He has seen already why Coughlin must have been drawn to this place; it’s one of the oldest houses in the neighbourhood, and certainly the only older property on this particular street. With its taller-than-average frame and wooden front stoop it’s not dissimilar to his old home in Charlestown.   
He scans the hallway, and the lounge she leads him to. There is a door, on the left of the hall, into the front-facing kitchen he’s seen in so many surveillance shots; sink, stove, table and chairs, cupboards, on the wall an old Canadian Tourist Board poster of forests and mountains somewhere, beside it a framed sampler reading “Céad míle Fáilte” above a picture of a log cabin surrounded with lopsided flowers. There’s an acoustic guitar propped against one of the cupboards.  
Another door to the right is shut, with a postcard of the Grand Canyon tacked to it. Two more doors he guesses are bedroom and bathroom, and at the end of the passage there’s an archway, seventies-style brick painted white. A wide lounge beyond.  
Margaret Mathieson turns as they come into the room and says “We aren’t planning on selling up, so you needn’t assess the property quite so eagle-eyed, like.”  
She grins, and it’s that natural, sting-free, friendly grin he remembers from their first conversation. “Do have a seat,” she says, and gestures to a brown armchair. “Let’s talk about this. There has to be something we can work out. I don’t want Jamie any more stressed than he is already, now that you’ve told him what he’s supposed to have done. So let’s talk…”  
“Okay…” He settles into the chair, surprised at how comfortable it is given its obvious vintage. “Look, I have to be straight with you, Mrs Mathieson, the evidence we have so far doesn’t look good for your husband. We’ve been doing background checks and we’re drawing a lot of blanks. Some very suspicious ones; virtually no IRS records, for example. His social security record is, well, pretty gappy, too. He claims to be from Boston but we haven’t been able to trace any school records for him. Or a birth record. None of this is going to look good to the DA…”  
“Are you trying to tell me that my husband doesn’t exist?” she says, smiling at the idea.  
“To a certain extent, at least legally, no.”  
She sighs. “Well, I can’t throw any light on that. It’s certainly odd he’s got no birth certificate. I wonder why that was? I never met his parents, they’re both dead… I know he grew up in quite a rough area, but I didn’t ever get the impression Charlestown was that kind of rough. Not beyond-the-rule-of-law rough.”  
“Only some parts of it,” he says, allowing himself a smile, too.  
She gives a little tsk with her tongue. “I used to live there, you know. In Boston, I mean – not Charlestown, Watertown. I was there for six months when I first moved to the US…” She tsks again, softly, thinking.  
Frawley realises his lips are compressed with irritation, and he moistens and relaxes them crossly. She’s just trumped one of his next cards; with this casual admission of hers, he can no longer use one of the facts his background check on her revealed, namely that she’s been concealing having lived in Boston too. If she’ll admit to this, she can’t have any concern that he’ll find out about a prior relationship with Coughlin. Which is tantamount to meaning, there was no prior relationship. His current pet theory crashes in flames.   
“Townies have this really bad reputation,” she goes on, calmly chatty still, unaware that he is brushing away the remains of the idea that they were accomplices all along. “Like they’re all incipient criminals. But I never met a one who wasn’t just a normal, decent, hard-working person, like you or me. Accents you could cut with a knife and spread on bread, but then who am I to talk about accents, eh? Only, like I said before, I don’t think it’s the kind of area where you grow up wanting to be a cop, or feeling pleased when you hear police sirens coming. I think that when Jamie hears a siren he probably wonders where the fight is and did anyone get knifed, and should he go hide till it’s all over.”  
“Does he talk much about his childhood?”  
“No. No, very seldom. Mostly he really doesn’t at all.”  
“Family ever get mentioned? You say his parents are dead – is there anyone else who could verify who he is – any siblings, for example?”  
“Not that I know of. His father was a pretty aggressive guy, I think. Reading between the lines of what he has said, I think maybe he knocked James and his mom about. He died when Jamie was a kid, and then his mom died quite young too. One of those things where you end up in a hospice, so cancer or AIDS or something. I know he dropped out of high school round about then…”  
Partial truths, Frawley thinks. Far more effective than an outright lie. If this is what Coughlin’s told her, he will have been able to do it with a normal voice and a relaxed manner. Given that it’s already clear he’s become a passable actor, he’d probably be more than capable of this amount of dissimulation.  
He’s never told her about his sister, he notes. That may turn out to be useful.  
“Can you think of any reason he might want to conceal his past?”  
“Conceal it? From who?”  
“Well, from you, for example.”  
“No… But then, if I could, would I tell you? Oh, I’m sorry, I know, this is real, I shouldn’t treat it like it’s a TV movie. But it’s so unlikely; Jamie, concealing his past? It’s funny.”  
Frawley lets her chuckle for a moment. Then says “Has he ever talked to you about his drug taking?”  
“Yes,” she says simply and instantly. “I know he had a bad drug problem. I think it was one of the main reasons he left Boston. He went to NA for several years, still touches base with the local meeting every six months or so. Getting clean probably saved his life.”  
“Does he drink?” It’s the automatic next question, to give himself time to think. Dammit, another of his good options gone; he can’t bring pressure to bear over this, either. Damn Coughlin to hell and back for being honest about the fucking drugs.  
“A little. Few beers, a whisky sometimes. Classic Boston Irish; give him a Guinness with supper and a couple of fingers of Jameson after and he’s happy.”  
“No more than that?”  
“No. Well, maybe a few more, at New Year’s or St Paddy’s, say. But he’s not a heavy drinking man. My first husband was, but not Jamie.”   
“Your first husband? That would be Jonathan Cable, right?”  
She goes completely still for a moment, and when she says “Right,” it is in a small, cool voice. There’s a pause, and then she goes on.  
“Can I ask you something now? ‘Cause I’m intrigued. You seem to be hinting that Jamie’s had some huge, terrible, criminal past before he met me, that he’s lied to me for six years about a whole rack of crimes and wrongdoings… But that’s not the man I know. I know a hard-working man who’s a good husband and a good businessman, who votes and pays his taxes and his mortgage and his health insurance. So, well, I guess my question to you is, do you believe in redemption?”  
“Huh?” says Frawley, with his mouth dropping open. Goddammit, the change of attack is masterly.   
“Do you believe in redemption, Mr Froley? Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins, and so on?”  
“I’m not a Catholic, Mrs Mathieson.”  
“It’s no business of mine if you are. No business of mine if you hold any religion or none at all. But I’m fascinated. Surely you’d agree that if my Jamie is your man, then he’s come a long way?” She doesn’t pause for long this time, and he guesses she knows he’ll avoid answering a rhetorical question like that. “What will it profit you, to send a man like James to prison? If he were your man, why then, he must have worked harder than any soul I ever knew to clean himself up and straighten himself out. And if he has a life that is clean and straight, if he’s repented his sins and atoned for them, is there no such thing as redemption for him, in your thinking? ‘Cause if my husband were your man, it seems to me he would have had to save himself from all the demons in his own mind, and every mental hell mankind has ever imagined, to become the man I know. Jamie’s no killer. He doesn’t even like to squash a wasp.”  
“People change,” Frawley says tersely. Her rhetoric is making him uncomfortable. Goddammit, she really does believe in her husband alright.  
“It seems to me that you’re saying let them change all they wish, let them repent and do right again, and rebuild their whole lives, the men I hunt; I am still the vengeance of the Lord and I will still smite them, because God may forgive but man never will. I’m sorry to wax poetical like this. But that’s a cruel doctrine you have there, Mr Froley. I’m not sure how much hope we’ll any of us have if you’re right, and repentance and forgiveness and setting straight your life all count for nothing.”   
“The people James Coughlin robbed haven’t forgiven him. The families of the two police officers he shot on his last raid haven’t forgiven him.”  
“You told Jamie this guy had killed six people…”  
“He shot a kid through the head when he was a teenager. He shot two members of the Boston PD on his last job. He led his three best friends to their deaths, doing that job with him. I make that six.”  
“What was this ‘last job’? Am I allowed to ask?”  
“He stole three and a half million from Fenway Park Stadium.”  
Margaret Mathieson looks around her lounge and her gaze takes his after it. And suddenly he sees, really sees, the room he is sitting in. He sees the assortment of brown furniture, the bookcase of paperbacks, the random ugly dining chairs, the sixteen-inch TV. Not as a mass of potential evidence that he cannot take, not as possible indicators of a connection to Jem Coughlin and a crime a decade old, but as the furnishings of an ordinary home. When she giggles for a second he flinches.   
“So we’re supposed to be millionaires, eh?” she says ruefully. “What a thing!”  
And on that flutter of amusement and that brown furniture, Frawley’s heart sinks and does not come back to the surface. The feeling is instinctual, deep-seated, beneath words. It takes him a moment to grasp why. He looks around the room again, echoing her movement. This is not, is absolutely not, the home of a man who is, or ever has been, rich.   
The chairs don’t match each other or the table. The upholstery is frayed and there’s a patch on the cushion under his elbow. The drapes are faded and don’t look as though they were made for this window. There are pictures on the wall, just as there were in the kitchen, but they’re just prints in clip-frames, and the ornaments on top of the shelf are the most ordinary things imaginable; a glazed jug, a paperweight, a comedy ceramic figure of a leprechaun, a wooden frog… The TV is a cheap brand; below it is a small shelf of dvds, an eclectic collection of action movies, Disney films, some opera and a couple of black-and-white ‘40’s classics.  
Jem Coughlin owns a dvd of “Le Jour se Lėve.” Or his wife does… He isn’t sure if that’s ironic or tragic.   
It’s a tidy home, not to an obsessive level but far cleaner and less cluttered than Coughlin’s old home in Charlestown ever was. It’s comfortably shabby, and it’s poor.  
All the doubts that nagged him weeks ago, when he first began trying to join up Coughlin and Mathieson, suddenly surface again; and his confidence goes under and stays under, drowning.  
He simply can’t believe that this is Coughlin’s house. He wants it to be; Christ, how he wants it to be! But it feels all wrong, in subtle, simple ways he can’t quite pin down. The cleanliness. The books. The complete absence of ostentation. The leprechaun. Hell, if there’s one thing he absolutely cannot imagine Coughlin having a sense of humour about, it’s his Irish heritage. Céad míle Fáilte.   
People change. He said it, and he thought he meant it, but looking around this room he wonders, do they change this much?  
He realises he’s been sat with his mouth pursed, staring at the leprechaun, for almost a minute.  
“Perhaps you can tell me what James is supposed to have done with all this money,” says Margaret Mathieson, still finding it funny. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a penny of it, you know…”  
Frawley sighs, and knows as he does so that this is the first uncalculated sigh he’s uttered today. He’s no longer sure if he’s right, and it hurts him sharply.  
“The guy I’m trying to find, James Coughlin, got away with some very serious crimes ten years ago. Three police officers died in that robbery and two of them were definitely shot by Coughlin. The man was a thug, practically a psychopath. It isn’t my personal values that say I have to follow up, if I get a lead on a cold case like this, a lead on where he might have gone when he went on the run. It’s the law. I’m just doing my job.”  
Oh, those traitorous, traitorous words, how it hurts to hear them on his lips again. I’m just doing my job.  
“Well,” says Margaret Mathieson gently “I guess, so am I.”  
They sit looking at one another for a moment.  
“I don’t want to put your husband in jail if he’s an innocent man,” he says wearily. “It isn’t like that.”  
“I don’t want you to, either.”  
“All I need is for him to come into the local PD and give us his prints, and he’s in the clear.”   
“I hope you won’t take this the wrong way,” she says. “I don’t mean it as rude as it’s undoubtedly going to sound. But it seems to me you’re not really interested in finding out the truth. Only in putting someone in jail. And at present, that means, putting Jamie in jail. You’re so convinced that he’s your man that all you’re thinking about is getting him for these crimes. Do you see the difference? - Do you see where that’s all askew? For sure, you must. You’re just looking for a proof of what you’re convinced of anyway. Jamie isn’t your man. But you don’t care, because you don’t believe it. People like you scare me, Mr Froley. You’re obsessive. A police officer ought to be dispassionate.”  
“You’re teaching me how to do my job?”  
“Oh, God, I’m sorry. I knew this would sound insulting. But yes, I guess you could say that. And I apologise for the rudeness of that. I guess it just hurts me to see my husband assumed to be a criminal like this. It hurts me that you don’t care if he’s innocent.”  
“Mrs Mathieson, I do care. It’s my job to find the guilty parties, not just to slam anyone’s ass in jail. But I know what I know!”  
“But you don’t know! All you can see is what you believe!”  
“But isn’t it also true that you’re only seeing what you believe? You don’t want to think about the possibility you married a man capable of lying to you, a man with a past like this. You don’t want to believe, so you refuse to see the facts that don’t suit you.”  
“This is kind of what I don’t understand. If you have facts, why don’t you make an arrest? Why are we even having this conversation, if you’re already in a position to tear our lives apart and prove to me that my husband’s a lying monster?”  
“I don’t have enough. That’s why I need the prints. That’s why I need you to convince him. He can exonerate himself in a bare half hour, if he’ll just forget his fucking pride!”  
“But, Mr Froley, the way you’ve been harrying us, pride is pretty much all we have left.”  
She sounds close to tears.   
“Just get him to come in, and he could be in the clear.”  
He’s back where he started, asking for her help again; and right back where he was weeks ago, too. No progress at all, except that now he feels weirdly like Satan offering Christ all the treasures of the world from a mountaintop. Bow down to me, and all this I shall give you.   
Maybe there is no progress to be made. Maybe he is an obsessive with no concept of redemption.   
“The state he’s in at the moment,” she says wearily “You’ll be more likely to find him down there making a complaint of harassment. I’ve had to talk him out of it twice already. We don’t want this trouble, Mr Froley!”  
“I could be really harassing him; I could have him down at the station this same evening for speeding. I could but I don’t. Stop seeing me as the bad guy, Mrs Mathieson.”  
“You’d have to trump up that speeding charge, you know. Jamie’s one of the most safety-conscious drivers I know.”  
People change, Frawley reminds himself again. They do. They change.  
But the catch in her voice and her strained face show him he’s got the dominant position again. He has to move on that. He takes a kind tone; conciliatory, reminding her again that he’s the good guy in this story.  
“Perhaps I was a little – a little too casual, when I came to see him first. I was pretty sure of myself. It goes with the territory, you know? Mostly, I’ve got the facts. Mostly, when I know who I’m after, I’ve got the right guy. But maybe this time it’s not. The thing is, I need evidence; either way, innocent or not, it has to be on the evidence. And that means those prints. Are you really sure you can’t persuade him to come in?”  
“I can have another try,” she says; and her voice is weary, and it’s her turn to sigh. “But, you know, I really can’t promise anything. I’m just trying to, you know, like, manage your expectations, here. Last time, when we talked about it, he said it was a matter of principle. The individual’s rights versus the might of the state, that sort of thing. He was a little on his high horse, if it’s not mean of me to say it. I think you frightened him, and I think you made him angry. I’ve not known him to be either of those very often, so I can’t really predict how he’ll jump.”  
“Still, I’d be grateful if you’d try again,” says Frawley. He feels a twinge of hope. His approximation of humility seems to have gotten her more friendly; she’s almost confiding in him and he lets himself hope that she may work on her husband again.  
Because if Mathieson isn’t Coughlin, he and Agent Lemmon have been wasting a hell of a lot of time here; and he handed over another case to pursue this one, a case he’d been making some headway on, too.   
Margaret Mathieson nods; her expression is sad and commiserating, “I’ll try,” she promises.   
“Thank you.”

 

The next day he listens to Lemmon’s new tapes; but he gets nothing. The quality isn’t too bad; the Coughlins – the Mathiesons – whoever the fuck they are – were in the kitchen, at the front of the house, most of the time, so the mike picked them up fairly clearly.  
They eat. They talk about a new client, and then for some ten minutes about turf. How can turf be this fucking interesting? It’s just grass, for fucks sake. They talk about something, some kind of equipment by the sounds of it, on special offer in a gardening supplier’s catalog.   
Then they talk about him.  
It’s a short conversation; Mrs Mathieson trying to suggest that her husband should think again, cut his losses and take the simple way out, and him refusing. She’s calm, supportive, pragmatic; he’s more emotional, the pitch of his voice shifting as his mood becomes more volatile. He gets stressed, then grows calmer again in response to her steadiness. He sighs, loudly enough to be audible on the tape, and apologises for having snapped at her. There’s a pause, the sound of a chair pushed back.  
Him: I love ya, ya know that. Ya do know that, dontcha?  
Her: I know. Honey, I know. I love you too. I love you so much…  
Another pause. Frawley wonders if they are kissing, and if this is going to turn into another tape like the very first one. The Embarrassing Sex Tape; he grins at the memory of Lemmon’s bright red ears as the younger agent listened and transcribed, and eventually handed over a typescript reading “Yes, yes, I’m gonna come! Yes, baby, yes, yes!” and with the note “[indeterminate sexual sounds]” at regular intervals.  
Coughlin – Mathieson – says:  
Him: It’s just – I can’t, I just can’t do it. I know ya think – I know you think – it’s the simplest way out, the practical thing –  
Her: To bow to the force majeure, yes…  
Him: But I just can’t. Baby, I can’t explain it, but I can’t. It’s just – all my life, the first thirty years of my fuckin’ life, there were always these fuckin’ bully boys tellin’ me what to do. Because they could. Dealers, local wise-guys, all the people who ran everything, teachers, bigger kids at school… I had nothin’, they don’t even leave you your self-respect, these people. It was killin’ me. I just hid from it, I took the drugs, I did so much shit, tryin’ to hide from my own fuckin’ life, tryin’ to be a bigger bully than them. Just like this fucker.”  
Her: I know, honey, I know.  
Him: It took me so long to get free of that whole way of thinkin’, that whole – I can’t go back to that, I just can’t. Maggie, I’m sorry, but I can’t. I won’t do it. Let him arrest me if his evidence is so great. Let him fuckin’ arrest me!  
Her: Sweetie, sweetie, it’s okay…  
Him: I’m sorry. Baby, I’m sorry. Jeezus, I wish I were the kinda guy he thinks I am, the kinda guy who’d put a bullet through his ribs for all the shit he’s dealin’ out to us.  
Her: You don’t mean that.  
Him: I fuckin’ do already!  
Another pause.  
Him: No, you’re right, I don’t… Oh, Christ, I wish – Jeezus, I dunno what I wish. I wish he’d nevah showed up. I wish he’d leave us alone.   
Her: I wish he’d do that. But he’s just doing his job.  
Him: Fuckin’ asshole.  
Her: He’s a jobsworth, that’s for sure. And a grudge-bearer, I think.  
Him: He’s a piece of shit!  
Her: He is a bully, you’re right there. I don’t think he’s even aware of it. Just ingrained in him.  
Him: Ingrained in him like dirt. Hey, I bet he was one of those big kids that kick the little kids in school. I bet he stole some other kid’s Butterfingers in school!  
Her: You and your Butterfingers! Oh, sweetie…  
There’s another pause, one which goes on and on, and eventually shades into what Lemmon has again transcribed “[sexual noises]”.  
Frawley stops the recording and takes off the cans; sits staring out of the windows at the blue afternoon sky. Nothing. He’s got nothing; and anyone hearing that tape and the others is going to hear only a despairing, resolute innocence. They won’t care about the accent fluctuating between So-Cal and Charlestown. And they will hear those words, those sentiments, that unhappy voice, and hear him saying “This man is a murderer and a thief”; and they will judge, and find wanting…  
He flips over the page, in case he’s missing something, but there are only a few more lines in the transcription:  
Him: I love you, Maggie.  
Her: Hmm? Go to sleep, sweetheart, it’s late.  
Him: We’ll come through this. I dunno how, but we will. Sonofabitch has to give up someday, right?  
Her: Yeah… Goodnight, Jamie…  
Him: Goodnight, baby…  
Frawley walks into the next room, where Lemmon is going through his photos again.  
“Should we give up?” he says bluntly.  
Lemmon looks up, mouth agape. “Huh? But – you said – you said yesterday, we don’t give up! I thought our motto was ‘we always get our man’, anyway.”  
“I thought that was the Mounties…” Frawley sits on the edge of the desk and runs his hands through his hair, yawning.   
“I don’t think so,” Lemmon says dubiously.  
“Well, who knows? Ours is something about bravery and fidelity, isn’t it? - Or am I thinking of the Marine Corps? Anyway, sentiment’s supposed to be the same, I guess. I’m just – I’m trying to be pragmatic. Are we wasting time and resources? Am I a grudge-bearer who’s lost all sense of perspective? Am I?”   
“I don’t think so,” Lemmon says again.  
“Seriously, kid; don’t tell me what I said yesterday, I know what I said yesterday. What do you think?”  
Lemmon leans back in his seat, looking up at him, and is silent for a moment. Frawley’s mouth twists wryly at his expression.  
“I’m tired, Lemmon,” he says. “I’m just trying to do my job, and I’m tired. I know this is Coughlin; but now I don’t know, too. It’s like a parallel universe version of him or some sci-fi shit. Could he have gotten knocked on the head and have amnesia or something?”  
“Only if this is a movie,” says Lemmon with a grin.  
“What do you think we should do? Advise me. Please. I’m serious – what do you think?”  
“I think we shouldn’t give up,” Lemmon says. He pushes his chair back, stretching his legs out. “Not ever. The moment you saw Mathieson’s face you were sure. I was there, I remember it. You were absolutely sure. And I still trust your instincts, even if you’re too tired to anymore. But maybe – maybe we should pull back. Just leave him be for a while. A few years, even. Give him time to get complacent.”  
“You have a point. Except I don’t know if complacency is a thing he’s capable of. But then what do I know? – I’d never have said he had it in him to marry. Or save a man’s life. Let’s not forget, that’s what all this started with. Jem Coughlin saved a man’s life.”  
“Yeah, I know… But, you know something? I believe him. When he says he’s never going to come in, he’s never going to give us his prints voluntarily. I believe him. And I know we talked about getting him on a traffic offence or something, but we have to face the fact that if we did that now it’d count as entrapment and get thrown out.”  
“I already thought of that,” Frawley admits.   
The kid’s voice sounds bitter, and he wishes it had not been this case – his case – that had taken that puppy-eyed eagerness of a few months ago away from Agent Lemmon.  
“Sometimes it can feel like your own side aren’t on your side, in this job,” he says. “But we have to try and do things properly.   
“I feel like I’m letting everyone down,” Lemmon replies. “Not just the agency. My folks, my buddies, everyone… I don’t want to let this guy get away.”  
“No…” He thinks for a while. “There is one other thing I might try. He’s a pretty emotional guy, wouldn’t you say? He’s held it together so far but I think the pressure’s starting to show. So it’s a gamble, but I think it’s worth trying.”  
Lemmon perks up visibly. “What’s that?”  
“We break him.”  
“How?”  
“The sister. He left her to fight her way clean on her own, and she had a rough time of it. She’s told me every time I see her for the last ten years that she hates his guts and she hopes he’s dead. Her family don’t know too much about her past, so I reckon I’ve still got some leverage there…”  
“Is that wise?”  
“I don’t know. Coughlin’s a good actor, it seems; but Krista? She could never keep her trap shut about anything. I reckon it’s worth trying.”  
He flies to Boston the next day.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the past, Jem and Maggie talk about homesickness and wanting things you can't have. In the present, Frawley brings Krista into the picture.

They were cooking together, one evening; or rather, she was cooking and he was sitting on the end of the bed, sipping a beer and shelling peanuts. The barbecue was ready, out on the fire escape, and he had come inside, leaving it to smoulder while she threaded the last of the marinated chicken onto skewers.  
“Are you done with those yet?” she asked. He held up the dish of peanuts silently in answer, and she took it and tossed them into a skillet heating on the stove, shaking them steadily to dry-fry for a few minutes. “If you want to hop out the window and get these on that grill we’ll be eating in ten… I’ll just make the relish.”  
The main room of the studio had two windows, one above the stove and one between the sink and the bathroom door. Jem moved a chair over to the second one and used it as a stepladder in order to climb out. He had to manoeuvre to get past the rosemary plant, which was bushing out nicely. There was a brief, happy moment when the main thing she could see was the firm curve of his ass, the striped cotton shorts hitching across taut muscles as he moved. She watched; it was about as good a view as she ever got through either window.  
He climbed down outside, and turned to take the platter of kabobs from her.  
“I’ll just get these babies cookin’ for ya,” he said.  
“Why thank you, cousin Jamie…”  
“You’re welcome, cousin Mags.”  
They had taken to calling one another cousin, half as a joke and half to back up the story they were using of how they had first met.  
Maggie tipped the toasted peanuts into the blender, added olive oil, lime juice, chilli, and whizzed them together. The sweet smell of grilling chicken wafted up from where Jem was bent over the charcoal. Her cousin-who-wasn’t, her Jamie, who had accosted her after a gig two years ago, saying “Hey, we have the same surname, d’ya think we might be cousins?”  
They’d thought the whole thing through, one night soon after they were first seeing one another: Agreeing what had been said, what each of them had been thinking, feeling, wanting; how she had tried to blow him out; how he had been steadily, patiently determined to get her number, even if it took him the rest of the night.  
She liked the fact that the story hinged on him wanting her, and working to get her, and not the other way around. To be desired did wonders for her morale, even in a fiction.  
She looked out, now, at his sun-bleached head and bronzed shoulders. He was turning the chicken again, deft and quick fingered, and didn’t seem to notice her scrutiny.  
She gathered together the crocks and silverware, the dish of freshly-made peanut relish, a big jug of iced water and a couple more beers, and ranged them along the sill, within Jem’s reach; then clambered onto the chair, balancing carefully away from the fulcrum to avoid having it fold up under her. She climbed out to join him on their improvised balcony.  
“Sweetie, can I ask you something?”  
“Yeah,” said Jem, concentrating. “Sure.”  
“Why did you remember me?”  
“Huh?” He glanced up sharply; his face was red from the heat rising off the charcoal. “Whatcha mean?”  
“I know why I remembered you. But why did you remember me? I can’t have meant anything to you, so…”  
She unfolded the two beach chairs she kept now under the window box, and sat down on one. There was a pause.  
“Plate,” Jem said, lifting the first couple of skewers.  
“Here you are…”  
He filled the platter she was holding out, and for the next few minutes they were both quiet, helping themselves to the tender chicken and eating, licking the spicy dip from their fingers. Maggie reached in through the window to hook out the two spare beers, and cracked hers, setting it down on the metal grille surface between her feet.  
She wasn’t going to press him, if he preferred not to answer.  
He took the second beer from the floor where she had placed it, opened it and took a long pull. Then suddenly, when she had given up expecting a reply, he said “It’s complicated…”  
Maggie nodded. She could well imagine it was.  
Jem thought about it for a while longer before he spoke again.  
“I told you about Doug,” he said. A statement, not a question; but he hesitated before going on, looking at her with a little crease growing between his brows.  
“Yeah,” she said.  
“I couldn’t believe it, when he told me what he wanted to do, you know? I coulda killed him. Why’dja wanna do a thing like that? – leave your home, leave the place you grew up and everyone that knows you, everyone that cares about ya? Why’dja wanna leave a proper community like we had and go to fuckin’ Florida where ya don’t know nobody?”  
He took another swig and sighed.  
“But after – after he told me – I couldn’t stop thinking about it, see. I knew I didn’t wanna leave my home! But the idea – the rest of the idea – the not-working for Fergie, the using my share of the money from the big job to get myself independent, run some kinda business – I didn’t really know what, get a bar or somethin’… That. Yeah. I began to think about that.  
“And you came along at that exact moment, and you didn’t look at me and see trouble, ya saw a guy who played the guitar, and ya asked if I wanted to join ya band. And ya said, yeah, I wantcha, but on my terms, I’m not scared of ya. Ya looked at me different from anyone else I knew. I knew it was ‘cos ya didn’t know any better, mind; but it was like ya crystallized everythin’ I’d been thinkin’ about and tryin’ not to think about, everythin’ about makin’ a new start.”  
Another long pull of beer. Behind him the charcoal was beginning to smoke faintly as it burned itself out.  
“And ya were fuckin’ hot,” he added.  
“Thank you,” Maggie said softly.  
“I never told Doug, you know? Never told him what I was thinkin’. I wasn’t gonna give him the fuckin’ satisfaction of hearin’ me eat even a one of my words… But it was like I saw it suddenly, that evening; I saw it real, instead of it bein’, like, just something other people talked about or tried to do. I saw it was possible to be someone people looked at the way you looked at me.  
“I remember, I had it all worked out. Gonna do the Fenway job, take my money, wait for Doug to go. Then tell Fergie I need a break from it. Say I’d lost one of my team, say I’m getting’ too old for this game, I’m not happy plannin’ without Doug’s input, I gotta rethink, regroup… I wasn’t gonna cut my own throat! Fergie wasn’t a man ya wanted to have pissed with ya, know what I mean? But I was gonna leave him behind, be my own man… I was gonna chill, have me some fun with all of that money. And I was gonna play me some guitar, like I’d wanted to do when I was a kid – I was finally gonna play in a band! – and I was gonna fuck me some hot Maggie-Mathieson-from-the-coast-of-Canada.”  
He looked over at her with a wry smile quirking his mouth sideways.  
“It was kinda like the way you promise yourself something, like you’re gonna have a vacation when you finish some tough shit and you can take a rest. I was gonna play guitar and have me a holiday on those beautiful boobs of yours.”  
“You sure know how to pay a girl a compliment, sweetie,” Maggie said. “My tits, a destination resort!”  
Jem’s gaze slid down from her face to her chest and stayed there, lingering as he moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue mischievously. His pupils dilated slightly. “Mmm,” he said in his best Homer Simpson voice “Hol-i-day…”  
“Oh yeah, we’ll have a holiday soon. Right after supper, eh?!”  
He grinned at her; then went serious again. His accent was stronger than she had heard it in months. “So, anyhow, ya know the rest. Everything got fucked up and the guys all died, and on top a all o’ that I nevah got to get my hands on ya. I had been plannin’ on makin’ ya scream my name so loud. I figured loud from a singer’d be real loud. But I didn’t get ta find out ‘cos ya were the one that got away…”  
He stood up and crossed the two feet of distance between them, and leaned over to put his hands on the back of her seat, one either side of her shoulders; then bent to pin her there and claim her mouth. He tasted of beer and sweet chilli and she moaned with pleasure into the heat of him.  
“God, I love you,” she said when at length their mouths separated.  
“Course ya do. I’m ya husband, ain’t I? That’s why ya married me, ain’it?” Another sweet, spicy kiss. “Oh, baby, I love ya too…”  
He hung over her, close in, with his kaleidoscope eyes fixed on hers and a broad grin wrapped around his face.  
“Ya know,” he said “I still can’t fuckin’ believe it sometimes, that ya married me. How’d I manage to get me a sweet dumb Canuck? Ya like paradise on legs, Maggie. Not a bone in ya body that isn’t dearer to me ‘n gold. How’d this happen to me?”  
“Luck, I guess…” She poked her lips up onto his for another quick kiss.  
“Yeah. I lucked out with you alright.”  
“So did I.”  
Jem’s smile twitched sideways. “Yeah. Least I’m better than that dumb fuck Jon ya told me about. Better in the sack, anyhow.”  
“And you know perfectly well that is not the only reason I married you! Numbskull, why do you even say such things? Sweetie, I look at you, and I see – well, okay, I see my sweetie with his beautiful arms reached out to hold me and his beautiful body hanging over mine – looking so hot” – she was stroking him through the cotton of his sleeveless tee, rubbing the soft fabric against his skin gently – “Oh, Jamie, baby… But – but I also see a man who has pulled himself up by his bootstraps, from a bad place to a pretty damned good one. Look at you, you sexy thing, you; you own a successful small business and you have clients queuing up for you, more than you can handle.”  
“More than we can handle,” Jem corrected her gently. His mouth tightened a fraction. “Yeah, I know where I’ve come from. Helluva way, in more ways than one…” He moved back and settled in his deckchair heavily. “Maggie, d’ya evah get homesick?”  
“For Pleasant Bay? I used to. Less so the last couple of years. I feel rooted again, here. With you… Do you miss Boston, baby?”  
His face went still, all expression fading off.  
“I miss Charlestown,” he said quietly after a moment. “It was just home and I guess – I guess I loved my home. It was a real place, ya know, a real community, it had history. All my folks were from there and I knew where I belonged there…” A pause; his eyes had slid from her to the rosemary bush, and then through it into the distance. “Yeah, I do, I get homesick. All the time. Not a day goes by I don’t wish I could go back someday. Wish I didn’t, but there ya are, that’s how it is.” He visibly came back to her, focussing again and giving a tiny smile at her look of concern. “I’d like to take ya back, show ya off! Hell, show myself off, say ‘Hey, look what I made o’ myself, once I had the opportunity, once I had a fuckin’ chance!’ – say that to all the folks who thought I’d nevah be anythin’ but a piece o’ Fergie’s paid muscle. And just – just live there, in my own home again… I know things here are good, life’s good. Hell, the sun shines in California alright! But yeah, I wish I could go home.”  
“Couldn’t we visit, maybe?”  
He shook his head, lips pinching together for a second. “I can’t take that risk. I’m not that guy anymore, but if I go home, everyone will know me as him and the next thing ya know I’ll be back in jail for the rest of my fuckin’ life… I spent all o’ this time, all o’ this money, getting’ straightened out. I got too much to lose; serious stuff, stuff I don’t wanna lose. I’m free, I gotta life, and I got you. I gotta whole new world, but this is the price. So I can’t go back. Ever.”  
She noticed, with a little jolt, how suddenly on that final word he corrected himself, to say “ever” and not “evah”. Pulling his mind back once again, from Charlestown and home, and the homecoming he could never have.  
“You’re an exile,” she said slowly.  
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s the word, I guess. Sounds kinda grand for me, though, dontcha think? Townie in exile.”  
“What about your sister?”  
He had only ever mentioned her occasionally; Maggie knew her name and that it had been her who shopped Jem and his friends to the police in return for her own freedom. But on the rare occasions when he spoke of Krista it was with regretful affection and a note of guilt. Not with anger.  
“Krista, huh?” he said now. “Well, I guess I’m never going to see her again… She might not wanna see me, after all.”  
“For sure she would!”  
“Might not. Far as she’s concerned I’m her piece o’ shit brother who bullied her about her drug-taking but did pretty near as much himself. She was probably glad to be shot of me.”  
Maggie sat looking at him for a moment, trying to place her response right. He looked quite lost in thought again, deep-gone into his memories; and she remembered with sudden vividness the aggressive swagger she’d seen on him, that night in Charlestown all those long years past. The walk, the manner, of a man who had to win every time and who would probably pick a fight of a purpose, just to win something. He had come a long way, indeed. It was a lot to lose and a long way to fall, for James Mathieson to become Jem Coughlin again.  
Still no reason for him to call himself a piece of shit. Perhaps having no siblings of her own, to love or to compete with, had made Maggie sentimental, but she could not believe Krista Coughlin had been glad to lose her brother. Her only living relative apart from a toddler child.  
A child he’d never see again, either; a niece who must now be about to start High School. He always spoke of Shyne with affection, too. She wished she could have met the child, that she could have seen Jem playing with a kid and being happy; that he could have had a family again.  
The image was tightly and acutely painful and she suddenly wished she’d never started this conversation.  
“Come inside,” she said. “The charcoal’s nearly out, isn’t it? Feels to me like it’s going to thunder later.”  
Jem blinked and came back to the present; she saw him look up at the evening sky, registering the clouds and the humidity. He nodded, and turned to check on the barbecue, reaching up after a moment to take the untouched water jug and sprinkle a little on the coals to put them out.  
He looked at her with a rueful smile. “I appreciate you tryin’ to change the subject… Now, climb in that window, I wanna watch that pretty ass of yours go by.”  
Maggie laughed. “So it’s not just me who enjoys the show, eh? Okay, babe, I’m on my way…”  
She hitched her skirt up, going up two steps of the fire escape to lean in through the window, swinging one leg inside past the rosemary. She knew she was presenting herself to him, and she embellished her movement with a wiggle, full-on and almost at eye level. She could hear him chuckling and next moment his hands cupped her ass cheeks, giving her an appreciative squeeze before sliding up and round, suddenly holding her tight. She felt the unmistakeable bump as his blunt nose rubbed against her butt, and then the heat as he planted a firm kiss there through the cotton of her skirt.  
He held on, arms wrapped round her hips, laying a warm cheek on one buttock. She imagined him closing his eyes happily.  
After a moment she felt herself wobble.  
“Sweetie – Jamie, sweetie, I’m halfway through a window. I can’t hold my balance here forever.”  
Jem laughed, the vibration purring through her. “I gotcha now, ain’t I? You shouldn’t tease me like that. I love your ass, you know that? You gotta beautiful ass. Sweet as a peach.” He shifted his head to nip the taut curve of muscle with his teeth, then released her as she yelped, and gave her a cheerful slap as she scrambled on through into the apartment. Inside, she turned smartly, setting her arms akimbo and raising an eyebrow at him mockingly.  
“You going to get inside here and make good on that? Or are you all dirty talk and no action today?”  
He grinned and handed up the plates and silverware, and then the two empty beer bottles. “Patience, cousin Mags…”  
“I’ll give you patience, cousin James! Come inside already – and don’t ask me to do the dishes first!”  
He clambered into the window with a whoop.  
“Come here, woman!”  
“You come here!”  
“Oh, I aim to!”  
He climbed quickly down via the chair. It wasn’t a dignified arrival, and there was nothing dignified either in the crushing embrace and devouring kiss that followed. He pinned her arms, and chuckled again as she struggled to get free, though all she wanted to do was hold him. His tongue had claimed possession of her mouth and his body was rock hard and powerful against hers. She squirmed, rocking her hips forward to rub against him.  
“Mmm mm!” went Jem, an enthusiastic growl of pleasure. The sound deepened into a breathy murmur as he went on kissing her, walking her backwards towards the bed, his grip gentling into a caress. He ran his long fingers up into her hair, drawing her face to his own as though she were precious beyond belief; releasing her arms as he did so, letting her embrace him completely at last.  
She found herself suddenly remembering his frantic touch, they first time they slept together. That desperation, the clutching hands and hungry mouth of a man who had been starved, not merely for sex but for closeness of any kind, for years. How far he had come, indeed. His tenderness now was so intense as to be almost unbearable; yet he was still the same determined man she had first met, first held, all that time ago.  
She shivered as a cool breeze came into the room, carrying the scent of rosemary. There was a damp edge to the air. She wrapped her arms eagerly round him as outside the rain began to fall.  
It became heavy, quickly; there was a rumble of thunder in the distance and Jem pulled away for a second with a chuckle, saying “I’ll just get that window…”  
She sat down on the bed, watching him. Every movement of his was smooth, always; beautiful and controlled, coiled with unspent energy. The strength with which he banged the window clasp into place neatly, the play of cool light across his hair, his profile, his shoulders and bare arms. The glass behind him was streaked into rippling patterns already as the rain pelted it, and when he came back to her his hands and arms were wet and cool to the touch.  
“Now, where were we?”  
He sat down beside her, pulling her close, sinking his mouth onto her neck and lifting her hair so he could kiss slowly up towards her earlobe. There was a flash of lightning, and Maggie jumped involuntarily, her arms round his neck.  
“Whoa, look at that…”  
For a moment they both paused, listening, looking. The rain; then the thunder, nearer this time; the window frames rattled in a storm breeze.  
“Reminds me of home,” she said without thinking; then turned to him, contrite. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to start that one again…”  
“That’s okay, I know ya didn’t…” Jem’s eyes were bright and his smile lopsided and happy. “Hey, remember the first time we met? It was raining then, too. Ya wouldn’t fuck me ‘cos the ground was wet!”  
“I remember.”  
“Ya big soft pussy!”  
“Well, it’s all yours now, eh? Big and soft and everything else about it…”  
He tucked his right hand under one of her breasts, cupping the warm weight gently, and leaned in to her, nibbling at her neck again. Outside the rain-dappled window there was another flash, and another crack of thunder; much closer now. He straightened as again she started at the noise.  
“You okay, baby? Dontcha like the thunder?”  
“I’m fine, sweetie. It just makes me jumpy.”  
Jem remained where he was, close, watching her, cradling one tit with his thumb grazing absently across the nipple. After a moment he said “That was the first time I heard ya sing…”  
She smiled, still looking at the rain. “Yeah…”  
“Ya gonna sing for me now?”  
“Is that a euphemism for blowing you, honey?”  
“Maybe later,” he said, chuckling. “Right now I wantcha to sing me that fuckin’ beautiful song, Gaelic, the one ya sang then. Just for me.”  
He rested his chin on her shoulder, giving her an almost boyishly pleading look for a moment before his eyes turned wicked. He kissed her neck again, then laid his temple was against hers, his big hand scooping her bosom warmly through the light cotton.  
He was her comfort and her rock, the last man she would have expected to be either. She took a deep breath, breathing into the strength that held her, and sang.  
“Tha mo rùn air a’ghille,  
‘S mór mo dhùil ri thu thilleadh,  
‘S mi ghu suibhladh leat am fireach  
Fo shileadh nam fuar-bheann…”  
She sang through to the last repeat, softly, with her head resting against his. When she finished he sat silent for a moment, and she reached up to touch the side of his head and stroke the thick hair, the beloved light brown tresses of the lyric she had just sung.  
“That’s our song, isn’t it?” Jem said in a whisper. His eyes were shut.  
“Yes, sweetie, it is.”  
The rain was still pelting down outside. She could see the rosemary and thyme, tossing in the pounding they were getting. She felt him draw a deep breath next to her. In a low voice he began to sing in turn, to the tune of Peggy Gordon; huskily, quietly, right in her ear.  
“Oh Maggie Math’son, you are my darlin’,  
Come sit ye down upon my knee  
And tell me true, what is the reason  
Why I am slighted so by thee…”  
He kissed her neck again quickly before going on.  
“I put my nose in a cask o’ brandy” -  
-“I know it as a glass of brandy,” Maggie put in, giggling.  
“Well, I’d be needin’ a whole cask, if someone kept me from you. Don’t interrupt.”  
He kissed her again, firmly on the mouth, pulling her half onto his lap before he went on with the second stanza.  
“I put my nose in a cask o’ brandy;  
Goddammit I can’t remember the fuckin’ words  
But if I had my Maggie Math’son handy  
I wouldn’t need to worry ‘bout that shit…”  
She was shaking with laughter as he nibbled her neck again. He stroked a hand over each breast, then hugged her close and drew in another, deeper breath.  
“I wish I was in some lonesome valley” –  
He was singing out, now, a full-throated baritone growl that made her press into him with a shiver. He sang on, drowning out the din of the rainstorm, happily spinning new words again.  
“With singin’ birds on every side,  
So’s I could spend my whole life thinkin’  
Of makin’ Maggie Math’son my sweet bride.”  
“You already did,” she whispered.  
“Oh Maggie Math’son, you are my darlin’,  
Come sit you down upon my knee” -  
Jem dropped his voice again, to a soft croon, and his warm arms began to rock her gently.  
“And tell me true, what is the reason  
Why I am slighted so by thee…”  
It was almost like being sung to sleep, and Maggie felt tears stinging her eyes suddenly.  
“Oh, sweetie,” she said. “You’ve got such a lovely voice.”  
She didn’t want to cry but the emotion she was wrestling with escaped her and the tears won though she sucked in a breath and tried to hold them. She felt the unmistakable jolt run through her body as a sob forced its way out.  
Jem went still for a moment, his lips on her skin, and then looked up. “What’s this? Huh, what? Woman, are ya cryin’? Goddam it, I try to do somethin’ romantic and ya break out cryin’ on me? Maggie – honey – fuck…” His face was a poignant blend of concern and frustrated arousal. “Baby, baby, what is it? Whatcha cryin’ about?”  
He reached up and pulled her face round, to kiss her strongly on the mouth. Another sob shook her and he broke off, holding her gently by the chin.  
“Fuck, baby, what’s wrong? What’d I do? I thought we were havin’ a good time. Aren’t we havin’ a good time?”  
Maggie gave up. She buried her face in his shoulder and clung there crying in earnest. A quiver of surprise went through him as her tears struck his bare skin, and she felt the warmth of him wrap round her protectively, strong arms and hands holding her, strong neck bent over her, strong lips kissing her hair.  
“Baby… baby, shh – Maggie – honey, what is it? Tell me, baby, tell me what happened…”  
“I don’t deserve you,” Maggie said, muffled, into the sweaty fabric of his tank top.  
“What? Bullshit! Jeezus, baby, whatcha talkin’ crap like that for?”  
She raised her head. She was trying to swallow down her crying, but all her efforts seemed to do was bring words and more words; words tumbling out stupidly through the tears that didn’t stop anyway. “I don’t deserve you, I damned well don’t! You’ve achieved so much, you’ve worked so hard and you’ve built so much, and you’re so good to me and what have I ever done? Got a degree I don’t use, worked in a lot of damned loser office jobs, can’t even give my husband a baby. And you say your sister wouldn’t want to know you. What would she think if she knew you’d married a woman who couldn’t even make you a dad? I’m this defective thing that doesn’t work properly and you’ve built yourself and your whole life from scratch while I’ve done nothing, nothing with mine!”  
“Ah, fuck, sweetheart,” said Jem, sounding confused.  
She touched the crease between his brows and collapsed, sobbing again.  
His voice changed, suddenly hard with anxiety. “Oh, my God. Maggie – it’s not – ya didn’t – did you just lose a -? Honey, sweetheart, we agreed we wouldn’t try, oh my God, fuck” –  
His back under her clutching hands was rigid and although he was wrong she wailed with misery at the mere idea. He thought she’d lost another pregnancy. She struggled with her voice and managed to gasp out a single “No…”, and he gave a little shudder of emotion.  
“Oh, thank God. Jeezus, Maggie, fuck, if I thought I’d put ya through that again I dunno how I’d live with it…”  
He was rubbing her back, stroking her as he might have done a child. Maggie whimpered into his chest.  
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! You should’ve been a father. I’m no use to you…”  
“Yes y’are! Ya everything to me. Fuck, baby, I married ya, didn’t I? Why’dja think I did that, huh? ‘Cos ya useless? Yeah, sure, that’s why I love ya, ain’t it? ‘Cos ya so useless… Ah, no, no, honey, that was a fuckin’ joke, ah shit... Shh, sweetheart, it’s okay. Ya not useless. Ya wonderful, ya tremendous. I’m the one don’t deserve what I got. Baby, baby don’t cry, it’s okay…”  
Maggie raised her head again, wiping ineffectually at her tear-streaked face. “No, it’s not. It’s not okay. Sweetie, if you stay with me” - the words choked her for a moment and she gasped and made herself go on – “if you stay with me you’re never going to be a dad. You’re never going to hold your own child in your arms, you’re never going to feel those – those tiny little fingers, g-gripping round one of your big strong ones, you’re never going to sing him to sleep, or feed him or burp him or put his little socks on his little feet… We’re never going to have a stupid discussion about whether he should be called Anthony Doug or Doug Anthony. You’re never going to teach him to ride a bike or drive a car, or get over a heartbreak, or handle his liquor, you’re never going to see him take a girl to the prom, or get his first job, graduate, anything. You’ll never be a grandpa. And it’s all ‘cause my goddam body doesn’t work properly! It’s all my fault!”  
“Hush, shh. It’s okay.”  
“It’s not okay.”  
“Jeezus, Gaelic, how many times do I have to say it? It’s okay. Really, it is. I’m not just sayin’ that to shut ya up. I swear it. Listen, your dad is a great guy, I’m almost as proud of him acceptin’ me as I am of you, Goddammit. But I still remember my own dad, okay? He died when Krista and me, we were just kids, but I remember him. I’d rather not be a father than be a father like him. He was a piece of work, ya know? I would be scared to be a dad, case of that happening.”  
He squeezed her and pulled her close, tugging her head back down for a second so he could press a quick kiss into her hair.  
“Don’t ya go tellin’ anyone I said that, though! There’s not much I’d like it known that I’m scared of, ya know what I mean. I mean, I’m not scared of much anyway…”  
“I’m amazed there’s anything at all,” Maggie said, sniffing.  
“Oh, there’s a coupla things. Turnin’ out like my dad, that scares me. Losin’ everything, havin’ to go back to doin’ stuff that I know now was fuckin’ killin’ me slowly; that scares me. Gettin’ caught someday and havin’ ya taken away from me, bein’ sent away for the rest of my life, that scares me. That kinda shit. Hearin’ you breakin’ down like that over this, now that is fuckin’ terrifyin’. ‘Cos I can tell you as long as I have breath in my body that it don’t matter to me, but I can’t make a difference to it matterin’ to you. And it does, doesn’t it? I love you so much, and if this is hurtin’ ya I dunno what to do, I feel so fuckin’ helpless hearin’ ya cry… And that scares me, Maggie, not bein’ able to help you scares me so much I wanna howl like a dog in the pound.”  
“I’m sorry,” Maggie said again. “I love you so much, honey. I just wish I could be everything you deserve.”  
“There you go with that shit again! Sweetheart, you’re a million fuckin’ times more than what I deserve and y’always have been. I’m good with you. I dunno where I’d be now if I hadn’t gone in that fuckin’ bar that night and seen you there… I was tryin’, you know I was, but it wasn’t goin’ easy, you know? – I was still feelin’ my way, I was runnin’ blind… No-one else in my whole fuckin’ life ever gave me what you give me, no-one. No-one ever trusted me or had faith in me like you do. Not even Doug. You are the rock on which I build my fuckin’ church, Maggie Mathieson… Now give me a kiss and dry your eyes, sweetheart. I love ya and I need ya and fuck it, I wanna make love to ya and I wanna make gardens with ya and take holidays with ya and grow old with ya, and be Carl and Ellie fuckin’ Fredrickson with ya, okay?”  
His lips met hers again, a dry, gentle kiss, waiting for her to open to him before he deepened it.  
She put her arms round him, leaning back and pulling him down onto the bed so he was covering her. His hands stroked and remade her body. His mouth was strong on hers and his breath was hot on her wet cheeks. He rained butterfly kisses on her eyes and delicately brushed her face with his lips and tongue, licking her tears away like a cat.  
“My salty Maggie, my girl from the coast…”  
“I love you, Jamie, Jem, I love you so much…”  
She hooked both hands under the hem of his tank top and pulled it up his body, caressing the muscles beneath, and he sat up for a moment, grinning, to pull it off over his head. Then unbuttoned her cotton blouse slowly and folded the white fabric back from her body, and looked down at her, his full lips parted, breathing hard.  
“Jeezus, Maggie. Ya got the best fuckin’ tits evah…” He slid his fingers under the shoulder straps of her bra and pulled them gently down over her arms, exposing the soft ripeness of her breasts. “Oh, baby, I’m gonna get me some of that, and I’m gonna get me some of that sweet, juicy salt of yours, and I’m gonna have me a feast. You wanna come feast with me? I’m gonna make you scream and cry and shout my name louder than the fuckin’ thunder. How’s that sound?”  
“Sounds good…”  
“Okay. Okay! C’mere, then…”  
She reached behind her own back to undo the hooks and eyes of her bra, and let her body arch upward towards his for a moment. He gave a strangled moan and covered her again, working down her throat with nibbling kisses, then taking her bare nipple into his mouth. She yelped as he bit her suddenly, as sharply as if discovering his teeth for the first time. He soothed the sting with wet strokes of his tongue, before beginning to suck again, with eyes sliding closed in mute pleasure.  
Maggie blinked, glad he could not see her own eyes growing wet again for a moment. She pushed the image of a suckling infant from her mind. He could never go home, and she could never give him children, but they had each other, and that would be enough. She ran her hands into Jem’s thick hair and twined her legs round him, and pulled him close. 

 

He never used to think of it as bullying; but Krista Houston, nee Coughlin, resists Frawley’s request for her assistance indignantly at first, and he finds himself bringing pressure to bear on her with an emotion very like relief. It feels weirdly good to have the power again, to be able to push someone until they are resentful and afraid and finally submissive. Then he thinks of Margaret Mathieson and her composed manner, calling him out, and is uncomfortable. Even if it isn’t legally so, he knows that morally, emotionally, he is coercing Krista into bearing witness. Because it will get the job done, true; but still, he is bullying her.  
But the habit of accepting his dominance is deep-seated in her, and she has three children to protect, these days.  
Krista flies out on the Friday evening and stays the night in the airport Holiday Inn; he collects her, silent and pouting, in the morning. The forty-minute drive from San Jose International to Capitola passes without conversation. Results are what count, he reminds himself. He’ll throw them together and see what she says, what she does. If she blows her brother out of the water, surely even Coughlin won’t be able to keep cool in the face of that. If she weakens, if she tries to hide her feelings, he’ll wait, and watch every flicker of expression, every subtle turn of phrase. Results are what count.  
He drives Krista Coughlin Houston to her brother’s home. He’s been saying “Your brother, your brother” for the past twenty-four hours, and he’s almost convinced himself again; almost back to his old, unshakeable certainty. Almost. James Mathieson is Jem Coughlin. He has to be.  
When they turn into the street, his earpiece crackles, and Lemmon’s voice comes through.  
“Target M has just left the premises.”  
“Shit.”  
“Target J is still on-site.”  
“Okay, I got that.”  
“Who ya talkin’ ta?” says Krista. “Ya talkin’ ta me?”  
“Nope. My colleague. He’s just letting me know your brother’s still at home.”  
“Watchin’ him, huh? Ya guys nevah change, do ya?”  
She stares at him, taut as a wire with hostility. She’s wearing less make-up these days, and dresses like the respectable working wife and mom she now is. He’s suddenly weirdly self-conscious as he realises that of the three of them he is the one who’s changed the least.  
He parks, across the street from the house, and she gets out before him. She’s looking up and down, from building to building, with a little frown between her brows.  
“Which one is it?” she demands. “C’mon!”  
“This way.”  
He leads her to the right property; the run-down older house with the wide grassy yard and the big parking lot where the truck is drawn up.  
“Green Sunshine Gardens?” she reads from its side. “Are ya fuckin’ serious?”  
“He runs a gardening business. I told you he ran a business.”  
She stops, right there on the driveway. Her face creases more, and she bites her lip unhappily.  
“Ya really sure ‘bout this? It’s like – it don’t seem – I dunno. I don’t think Jem evah even looked at a plant. Are ya really sure?”  
“Come with me to the door and we’ll find out.”  
“I nevah shoulda come with ya,” she says. “I nevah shoulda…”  
But she walks the last few yards stuffing shaking hands into her pants pockets, and stands next to him at the door as he rings the bell. The screen door is already open, and when James Mathieson answers, with a pair of reading glasses on his nose, they are face to face.  
Mathieson looks him, Frawley, in the eye, over the rims of his glasses, and he frowns and compresses his lips. He takes the glasses off, and gives Krista a glance while he is folding them and tucking them in the breast pocket of his cotton shirt. His expression doesn’t change one iota.  
Krista looks blankly up at him for a moment, and starts to cry, and he looks at her again, his face suddenly confused.  
“Is this meanta be him?” she says to Frawley through her tears.  
“What the hell?” says James Mathieson in bewilderment.  
“Is this s’posed ta be my brothah?” Kristas asks.  
Her legs suddenly seem to weaken, and she grabs the frame of the porch for support and puts her other hand over her face. Muffled by sobs she adds “Ya fuckin’ sonofabitch!”  
“What the hell?” says Mathieson again. He stares from one to the other, and his expression shifts between anger and concern. “What’s going on? Who is this? Lady, are you okay?”  
“Fuckin’ sonofabitch,” Krista repeats, and she sits down heavily on the stoop, apparently crying in earnest now.  
“Well,” Mathieson says after a moment. “He surely is that. I have to agree with you there.” He glares at Frawley. “What the hell is going on, please? Is this really what it looks like? Mister, you are a piece of work, you know that? Lady – lady, are you okay?”  
They can’t keep this up, Frawley thinks. They simply can’t. No-one could be this good an actor, surely.  
Krista goes on sobbing noisily, covering her face completely in her hands, so that for a second he wonders if she’s trying to conceal that in fact it’s all noise and no tears. As she continues to wail, Mathieson’s attention moves to her again and he crouches down and reaches, very hesitantly, to touch her shoulder. With his knuckles, not fingertips. No prints; yet the gesture looks uncalculated and sincere. She twitches away and he straightens again hastily, saying “Sorry, sorry – I just – can I do anything? I – I can’t just stand here and watch somebody cry at my own front door, I just can’t.”  
Krista raises her head, and there are definitely tears streaming down her face. She sniffs loudly, and it’s a wet, disgusting noise, and when she speaks to him it’s in a voice that is thick almost to choking with real, uncontrollable, ugly feeling. “Thass naht my brothah! No fuckin’ way is ‘at my brothah! List’n ta him! Fuck!”  
Mathieson faces Frawley, staring up at him. “Would you mind tellin’ me what the hell is goin’ on? I’m an only child, by the way – as the very simplest fuckin’ background check should’ve already told you. So this lady is not my sister. Jeezus, man, did you tell her I was her brother? ‘Cos it looks like she really wanted to see him. You got any idea how fuckin’ cruel this is?”  
Frawley is still waiting for one of them to miss something. They cannot be this good, they just can’t. He doesn’t answer, and Krista gives a little whimper and says “’Course he fuckin’ knows! I was meant ta i.d. ya. I was gonna! I was gonna do it! I don’t care who the fuck y’are, mistah, I jus’ wan’ this sonofabitch offa my fuckin’ back finally! If ya was my brothah, he’s nevah come neah me in ten fuckin’ yiahs, so fuck him… ‘Cos if he is alive then why’d the fuck’d he nevah come home?”  
“I’m confused,” says Mathieson. And sounds it. “Is your brother dead? Then why -”  
“Can we go inside, please?” says Krista suddenly. “This is humiliatin’ ‘nuff without bein’ on the fuckin’ street.”  
Frawley stirs himself. “I can’t allow the two of you to go inside alone and confer. You must know that.”  
Mathieson’s glare is like a blue-grey laser. “What the hell’ve we got to confer about? Other than, I’m guessing, how much we both loathe you? Okay, fine, whatever – both of you, then. Come inside.”  
But once inside, all he does is offer Krista a seat and, after a moment, a glass of water; and offer neither to Frawley. Then he waits, tense and bottled. Krista gulps at the water with her hands gripping so tight that she’ll undoubtedly have smeared any prints on the glass, even if it were his to take.  
She says mournfully “May I have a tishya, please? I got nothin’ ta wipe my fuckin’ face on.”  
“Oh. Yeah, sure,” says Mathieson, and goes out of the room. In the few seconds he’s gone Krista fixes Frawley with a brilliant-eyed glare and says again “Ya sonofafuckinbitch…”  
“Here y’are,” says Mathieson, returning with a roll of paper towels. “This okay?” She meets his eye for a second, nodding, as she takes them and tears several off. She blows her nose into a sheet and wipes her eyes, smearing a faint trail of mascara on one cheek; and sighs.  
“Thank ya, mistah… uh, mistah…”  
“Mathieson. Jamie Mathieson. Uh, yeah. Hi.”  
“Hi. I’m Krista Houston. This asshole told me ya were my brothah.”  
“Oh. I’m not. I’m sorry.”  
“I know that!” Though her face is still tear-streaked she manages a weak smile. “No way are ya! But ya know, I can kinda see why he thought it, ya eyes ah the same cullah. But ya not Jem…” And then her face creases up helplessly and she starts to cry again. “Goddammit, I wish ya were!” She wipes at her face and sniffs rawly, struggling to stay in control of herself, to go on speaking. “I mean, I don’t, but I do, ya know what I mean? I been tellin’ myself I don’ give a fuck, I’ll jus’ lie an’ say yeah-it’s-him, whoever the fuck it is, some dumb-ass stranger nevah saw me in his life before, what’d’ I care, I jus’ wanna get free of this fuckin’ asshole maybe at last. But then I’m lookin’ at a house, a street, a truck, an’ it’s for real and it’s like Oh My God, is it really gonna be Jem? Is he really still alive? An’ I’m quakin’ like a fuckin’ leaf ‘cos I ain’t seen ‘im in ten yiahs. I been tellin’ myself I don’t care, I don’t give a shit, I’ll jus’ say yes-it’s-him and go home. An’ then sudd’nly I do care an’ I wannit tah be him so’s I gettah see him again – an’ I don’t wannit tah be him ‘cos I don’t want this fuckin sonofabitch ta get’im! An’ then ya aren’t him anyway an’ fuck, I dunno… I wish he was okay. I’d’a loved tah see him again.”  
“What happened to him?” asks Mathieson quietly. She sobs, choking out her words.  
“He c’mitted a rabry an’ ran ‘way… Left me an’ my little girl an’ ran. I been so angry with him! Why’d he leave us alone? He nevah came home, not once! An’ then I realised. He musta got killt someplace. He was always in trouble, always in shit a some sort. He woulda come home. He woulda. He’s dead, he’s gotta be dead. Ah, fuck…”  
“Jeezus,” says Mathieson. “I’m sorry. That sucks.”  
She cries a little more, but the crisis seems to be passing; the two men watch and listen as she wrestles to pull herself together. Finally Frawley stands up. He can’t tell how they’re doing it, but they seem completely genuine, and he can’t see any point in continuing this farce.  
“There’s a flight to Boston this evening,” he says. “I’ll take you to the airport if you like…”  
“Yeah…” She wipes her eyes again. “Yeah, I gotta go home. I wanna ferget this evah happened. Fuck, yeah…”  
Mathieson is staring up at him, his eyes wide and intense with anger. “Is that it?” he says. “Aren’t you even gonna apologise to her?”  
“’Course he ain’t,” Krista says before he can answer. “Ferget it. I wanna go home. I shoulda been buyin’ my kids’ school things today. If there’s a flight home tonight then I wanna be on it. Shyne’s growin’ so fast an’ the boys need new shoes an’ sports gear an’ stuff…”  
She stands, picking up her purse and stuffing the crumpled wet paper towels into her pants pocket.  
Mathieson stands up too. “Well,” he says. “I’m sorry I’m not your brother…”  
“Yeah… No. No, I’m kinda not sorry. Jeezus, fuck, this is so confusin’. Thanks fah the water, anyway.”  
“You’re welcome. Say, I hope he is okay. I hope you do see him again.”  
“Who, Jem? Nah. Seriously, chances are he’s dead. Aftah alla this time. He prab’ly got some dirty coke or somethin’. He woulda come tah see me he’d a still been alive.”  
“He was an addict, huh?” Mathieson is leading them back to the front door; he glances over his shoulder, saying “People do get cleaned up, though, ya know? I mean, I did. It’s not impossible.”  
“Nah – nah, I don’t think Jem woulda been able tah. He didn’t have much self-discipline.”  
Mathieson chuckles huskily as he opens the door. “I dunno that I did. I just realised I didn’t want to end up dead.”  
Krista pauses there, at the door, looking round. “I guess ya gotta reason,” she says. “Ya gotta home, a business, a family. I saw them pics in ya lounge. Ya got shit tah live for.”  
He shakes his head, pursing his lips wryly. “I wouldn’t have any of this, the house, Maggie, any of it, if I hadn’t gotten clean. It changed my life. So maybe, your brother… Well I mean, don’t give up hope.”  
She sniffs and smiles politely, nodding; and leaves the house, walking briskly to Frawley’s car with her head up.  
As Frawley steps out onto the stoop, Mathieson says behind him “Can I ask you something, Agent Frawley?” He waits for a moment, before going on quietly. “Are you ever going to leave us alone?”  
Frawley looks into the wide blue eyes. Their expression is bitter and unflinching. He thinks for a second.  
“Nope,” he says.

When Maggie gets back, in time for a late lunch, she finds a Hummerts catalog on the kitchen table with a bit of paper sticking out of it like a page marker; and Jem peacefully making her a ham sandwich. He’s brewed coffee, and they sit drinking in companionable silence while she chews her sandwich and reads. The note is in the section on pesticides.  
“Sweetheart he came again. I dunno how much longer I can stand this. He brought Krista. He brought her here all the way from home. She wouldn’t id me. She said shed meant to cos itd get him offa her back. It was weird seeing her. Im still freaking out. She looks okay. I think shes married. She saida name was Houston. She said she got boys as well as Shyne. So I got nephews. It was weird hearing her voice. I realized I fucking missed her so much. But I guess Frawleys been giving her shit cos she wants to get away from him and she said shes prepared to tella lie to get him to fuck off. Anyway we both playacted like we don’t know each other. I wanted to give her a hug but I can’t. Jesus Maggie it was weird. I wanna tell her everything. Like how sorry I am and stuff and how much I miss her and Shyne. But I cant. That asshole Frawley watching us the whole time just staring and scowling. I coulda smashed his face. I don’t think we gave him anything. But my hands are still shaking now.”  
She turns the piece of paper over, keeping it low so it won’t be visible from the window, and turns a catalog page at the same time, to mask any sound of paper crackling.  
“You know we talked about moving away when he first showed up. I think we gotta plan to do that sometime. Not right away but soon. In a couple of years or so. We gotta have an escape plan. But that’s maybe because I’m panicking cos I dunno how to handle this. If we do that and theyre watching us then were officially on the run and itll be both of us not just me. I dunno if I got the right to ask you to do that. If youre ok with that you can tell me its both of us and well work something out. We might never need to do it. He might go away tomorrow. Otherwise I think were just gonna have to live with it. If he doesn’t go away I promise you Ill try not to go crazy. But I’m afraid hes never gonna leave us alone. But I guess that’s just how it is. It was always gonna be a risk that things would get fucked one way or another. But Im so glad I saw Krista again even if I cant talk to her proper. Im so glad I know now shes ok and Shynes ok. Like Im so glad you stuck with me bb and even if I lose this fight I want you to know that. I love you bb. J XX”  
Maggie closes the catalog and pats it. “Yeah,” she says. “You’re right, that’s the stuff we need alright. And that big piece of kit, too. It’s a commitment, but I think we should save up for it. In case we need it one day.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Yeah… It’d make jobs like the one I was doing today a whole lot easier. My back is so stiff!”  
“You wanna rub later?”  
“Oh, yes please! Say, sweetie, are you real busy tomorrow? Is there any chance you could come out and help me finish up there?”  
“Yeah. Yeah, I think so. You wanna hand?”  
“It’ll go better if it’s the both of us.”  
“Yeah…”  
“And thank you for making me a sandwich, honey. You’re the best.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One last flashback; and in the present day Frawley makes a miscalculation. A short coda is set two years later.

Her second wedding anniversary gift to him was a guitar. She had never forgotten hearing him play, that first evening long ago. He sang sometimes, crooning old rock tunes and folksongs he’d mostly picked up from her, around the apartment or while he was working, and he had often come out to hear her sing and play with Caerlaverock. But she had never been able to persuade him to tell the guys he could play too. Yet if all he did with an instrument of his own was give himself the pleasure of strumming chords along and playing as he sang, that on its own would be a delight to them both.   
She had held off from buying one for a long while, cautious lest it should spark difficult memories. He so seldom talked about the past, but she had realised some time ago that the friends he’d been with in the bar, that night in Charlestown when they first met, must have been the guys who died.   
She’d never asked which one of them was Doug.   
So she waited for months after the thought first came to her, wondering if it was a good idea. Then one night she watched him sitting at the side of the stage while she was singing, and saw how he strummed on his knee without realising. He might not even know it, but surely part of him wanted to have the touch of music in his own life, in his own hands, again. She made up her mind on the spot.  
At least those months of wondering meant she had enough saved up to buy a decent instrument.  
His face practically split in two with smiling when she produced the guitar in its soft black case, and gave it to him that morning.  
“What the fuck? Oh, fuck, what?”  
“Happy anniversary, honey…”  
“The fuck? Oh, baby, oh my God… Wow. Fuck… Maggie, the hell did this cost? – no, no, don’t tell me! Fuck, baby, that’s a beautiful guitar…”  
“Quit cursing and try the damned thing. I got the woman in the shop to tune it...”  
It was a good quality acoustic; steel strings, natural ash body, mahogany inlay on the fingerboard. Jem sat on the bed in his boxers and settled it in his lap, and bending his head tenderly he caressed the strings.  
“Oh, baby,” he said. “Sounds good…”  
He stroked a sequence of chords and then began to pick out melodies; Siobhan ni Dhuibhir, An Paistin Fionn, A Stor mo Chroi…  
“Oh, baby, this is beautiful…”  
“It’s beautiful listening, too. You like it?”  
“I fuckin’ love it! How’d ya know? How’d ya know to get me this? I nevah had my own guitar before, just borrowed other people’s… I nevah thought I’d get to touch one again, nevah thought I’d dare, not now I know real musicians. I love it, baby.”  
He started to strum again, and then to croon softly, humming the first lines of a familiar tune. Maggie smiled as she recognised it, and next moment he began to sing, coming in halfway through the first stanza.  
“Made up my mind, make a new start  
Goin’ to California with an achin’  
In my heart…”  
He sang through the whole song, grinning at her with his eyes sparkling. When he got to the line about the girl with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair she felt tears in her own eyes for a moment.  
Jem hummed the last “ahh” and slowed the chords he was strumming to a halt. He sat looking across at her for a moment before saying “Fuck, baby, I love it… Hey, sing for me, wouldja, huh?”  
He began to play the lively tune of Domnhall Dubh and Maggie sang along, two stanzas and the repeats while he chopped out hard clean chords with a grin broad enough to split his face. Then he missed a note, picking out the fancy melody in the bridge, and stopped with an angry mutter at himself. Next moment he was grinning again, though.  
“I should cuss, huh? My first bad note after seven years, not so shabby really… Baby, baby this is beautiful. I’m gonna play for you so much. Hey, didn’t I play for you, that night, before – when we first met? – did I play for you then? I think I did…”  
“You did. You sang and played and I sat there watching you and thinking ‘He is so not my type but it’s no good, he’s fucking hot and I want those hands all over my body’. I wanted you so much…”  
“Ya wanted me, huh?”  
“Oh yeah, sweetie.”  
He stood up and laid the guitar down on the table, and came back, standing over her where she sat amid the rumpled bedding, still in her nightshirt.  
“So what did ya want me to do? With my hands? All over ya body, huh?”  
Maggie looked up at him, trying to pretend to diffidence. “Ohhh, well… I just wanted you to touch me. I wanted you to touch me everywhere…”  
He knelt at her feet and reached out, brushing his hands over her, just grazing the cotton fabric so that it slid across her skin with each touch.  
“I wanted your hands on my face. On my throat. My arms…”  
He followed her directions, slowly, with an expression of innocence that was somehow more amused than bemused; as though he wanted to playact having never dreamed of such things, but could not quite manage the deadpan face. When she said “My boobs,” a grin twitched his mouth. Her next words were “My pussy,” and he started to chuckle. With a sudden grab he pulled her close, raising his mouth to hers and silently demanding her kiss as she wrapped both legs round him. She bent to him and opened her mouth on his, aching for his heat, and massaged the powerful muscles along his spine, running her fingers gradually down to his ass. He growled and tipped her back onto the bed, pushing her over until he could climb on beside her and tug her close again. They lay tangled together, limbs gripping and hands stroking, tongues wrapping round one another. When he broke off from kissing her they were both panting.  
“Happy fuckin’ anniversary, sweetheart!”  
“Honey, don’t stop!”  
“I gotta present for you, too.”  
“Yeah, I can feel it.”  
She pushed her hips against his, rubbing herself on his growing hardness. Jem grinned like a demon on heat.  
“Easy, tiger. Ya can have that too. In a bit. First” –   
He reared up, pulling away from her arms to sit back on the bed and look around the apartment. “Where the fuck did I put it?”  
“What’d you get me, hon?”  
“It’s somethin’ to wear. It’s beautiful, ‘cos you are. And after ya’ve got it on I’m gonna fuck ya wearin’ nothin’ else but it.”  
She got hold of the waistband of his boxers and pulled, trying to get him to lie down again and pick up where he’d left off. He laughed at her, detaching her fingers easily and holding her imprisoned; slowly pushed her arms back until they were pinned above her head.  
“Dontcha wantcha present? Guess what I gotcha!”  
Maggie pouted in mock frustration. “I don’t know! Silk pyjamas?”  
“Nope.”  
The morning light gleamed on his shoulders and the tanned curve of his biceps. She twisted and lifted her head to press her mouth to one of the little scars on his forearm.   
“Corset,” she said.  
He rumbled with laughter. “Oho! Is that what you think I’ve got in mind? – getcha all squeezed in tight and corseted-up? Tied-up, even? Sorry, not this time…”  
“Heh, you’re just being mean now. You just going to tease me like this all morning, dammit, James?”  
“Have another guess.”  
“Push-up bra.”  
“Nope.”  
She wriggled, teasing him back as the open neck of her nightshirt shifted across her bosom, revealing and then concealing the soft curves of her skin.  
“Scarlet high heels.”  
“Nope.”  
“Rubber boots,” she said. “Or I give up. Come to think of it, I do need some new rubber boots…”  
“Oh, Maggie!” Jem was laughing again. “Dontcha think I’d even try to do somethin’ nice for my woman? Somethin’ romantic? Something she’ll fuckin’ enjoy?”  
“So stop all this talking and make love to me, big boy!”  
“Impatient woman. Presents before sex.”  
He reached across her and opened the drawer of the bedside cabinet, and snagged something small out of it. He was still holding her pinioned, but he placed the object in her hands and held her for a minute more, while she fumbled to try and identify it by touch.  
“It’s a box, a little box. It’s got to be jewelry. Jamie, you didn’t… You already gave me a beautiful ring, honey.”  
“Jewelry it is,” Jem said. “But it’s not a ring. Here” – he released her hands and she brought the box forward quickly, and flipped open the lid.  
“Oh, my God. Oh, Jem. Sweetheart. Oh my God.”  
They were perfect; white gold ear-studs each set with a single princess-cut diamond. Simple and classic. Instead of a solitaire for their first anniversary, he had bought her two for their second.  
He smiled like a boy at the sound of his old nickname, the name only she used these days. She lay in shock, staring at the sparkling stones, and did not resist when he took the box gently from her fingers and removed the earrings. Tilting her head and stroking her hair back he carefully inserted one in each earlobe, slipping the gold posts into her piercings tenderly.  
Then slid his hands down her body, to stroke up her thighs, riding the cotton up. She lifted her ass off the mattress, and then her shoulders, the accommodating movement undulating through her to her fingertips. He pulled the nightshirt free of her body and threw it on the floor.  
“Look at ya,” he said. “So fuckin’ beautiful. Nothin’ on but diamonds.”  
He leaned onto her, rubbing his arousal against her thigh, and began to kiss her open mouth. She sucked hard on his tongue and he groaned and bit at her tightened lips gently and then more urgently. Maggie slid her hands inside his shorts. She stroked his ass, cupping the two tight hemispheres of muscle that bunched and flexed in her grip. His cock strained against the fabric and she felt him shift his weight so that he could work one hand between their bodies. She eased her own hands round to unbutton him and help him free himself, and stroked teasing fingers along his hardening length. He was sliding his own fingertips into her folds, probing and stretching her, then beginning to rub gently on her clit.   
She wrapped both hands around him, feeling him thick and hot between her palms. His nostrils flared and he thrust at her, pressing into her grasp involuntarily before drawing back with a groan and moving away. She braced her heels in the bedding and tilted her pelvis towards him, and the red-hot head of his cock rubbed against her, making her whimper in pleasure. He pulled her ass up a little more, lifting both her legs to his waist, and slid his shaft across her wetness, still rubbing her clit rhythmically with his thumb. His smoky eyes were locked on hers and a crease of concentration came and went between his brows. With the same precise care with which he had pushed the ear-studs into place, he positioned himself and slid smoothly inside her in one deep thrust.  
He knew every inch of her, and every soft place, every slow movement or sudden touch that could elicit quickening breath and quickening moans, and cries encouraging or enthusiastic, or mindless and helpless. She crossed her ankles behind his waist and locked her legs round him, pressing hard on his ass, urging him on with clutching hands as he glided in and out in her wetness like a well-lubricated piston. He pulled half out of her as he sat back on his heels, and then gripped her ass and pulled her up, onto himself and half off the mattress; she gave a little scream as he rammed into her at this new angle, the head of his cock pushing in deep, grinding across her g-spot as he leaned back and snapped his hips forward into hers. Next second he overbalanced and fell on his side, and she came off him and fell flat on her back again; for a second they both lay laughing and panting breathlessly.  
“Whoa, now who’s the tiger? Come here, Jamie, let me get you sorted out there.”  
She sat up and climbed on top of him where he lay grinning, straddling his hips and bracing herself above him. Laughter had softened him a little but she grazed her fingertips up and down his shaft and then gripped him firmly again, smiling as he grew springy and then throbbing and rock-hard again under her touch. She adjusted her position as Jem gripped the backs of her thighs, working his head into her opening slowly, and lowered herself onto him from above, gradually shifting her angle, moaning as she felt his hot length pushing deep into her cunt and her muscles stretching round him. He threw back his head, gazing up at her with eyes half-closed, and began to roll his hips, thrusting into her from beneath with little gasps of pleasure. She rocked into his thrusts, raising one hand to stroke her breasts; he compressed his lips, panting again as he watched her start to circle one of her own nipples roughly. She put her other hand to her face and began to suck on her pinky finger, looking down at him, and Jem groaned aloud.   
He still had her gripped tightly, his right hand almost bruising her thigh; but suddenly he moved his left and pressed it against her pubic bone, big knuckles digging into her lower abdomen and thumb sliding down, back onto her clit; her own movements worked with him and she felt herself catch fire and start to come, waves of pleasure pounding through her as he rammed upwards faster. Everything tender and hot in her seemed to be caught between his thick driving cock inside her and the hard knuckles pushing into her belly, and she howled and arched back, clutching his hands for dear life. She felt him explode inside her as the pulses of her orgasm wrapped round him.  
She pulled herself upright again, and collapsed on top of him. His chest was heaving as he gasped for breath. Maggie lifted herself gently off his softening length and snuggled against him, panting too, and he raised one hand to knot into her tangled hair, holding her close with her head pillowed on his shoulder. In her ear he whispered hoarsely “I love you, Maggie Mathieson. Jeezus fuckin’ Christ, I love you. And no-one, and nothin’, is evah gonna taken ya away from me.”

 

Adam Frawley sits in his office; it's the day after he brought Krista face to face with her supposed brother. He's listening to the latest tapes Lemmon made, recorded just last night; and there’s nothing. They chat, they eat, and then Mathieson tells her about what happened that morning, and how heart-breaking it was watching what he calls “this nice normal mom who wanted her brother to still be alive” break down and cry on his front stoop. He calls Frawley an assortment of names, and sighs, and she says “Oh sweetie” and “oh baby” and “oh, my God,” at intervals, and eventually, really quite crossly, “You know, I’m getting awfully tired of Mr Froley”.   
Mathieson says “It’s Frawley, not Froley”, echoing his own exasperation unnervingly; and she says “Oh, my God, have I been mispronouncing that ass-hat’s name for a whole bloody month?” and they both fall into hoots of laughter.   
But a few minutes later they are talking about liniment and about how much she’d like a back massage; and then about how much they would like a weekend off, and maybe to go up in the mountains. Then he starts crooning - “mountains and the canyons start to tremble and shake” - and she joins in. Next thing, he’s fetched a guitar from the bedroom and they’re singing to one another.  
They’re meant to be a hardened criminal and his moll, and they’re sitting there singing Led Zeppelin songs and eating ham sandwiches, like something out of “The Waltons”; and he is suddenly sick, sick, utterly sick of this whole stupid fucking game.  
He looks at the photos, quickly; but all they show is the same old shit, too. Smiling couple talking in their kitchen. Looking through a big fat catalog with a mowing machine on the front. Drinking coffee and then kissing, and going out of the room.   
He stuffs the prints into an envelope and drops it onto the pile in the in-tray. Then takes out a box file and starts clearing his desk and packing everything away. By the time Lemmon gets in, he’s nearly finished the job, and he’s made the phone calls he needs to make. He is almost smiling as he looks at the younger agent’s baffled face.   
He doesn’t mention his doubts, the nagging fears that fretted inside him all night; doubts that this morning have brought the name Mathieson first into his mind, and Coughlin only a poor second, as he looks at the photographs and listens to the recordings. He says instead “I’ve spoken to the local PD, they’re going to keep an eye on them for a year or two and report anything suspicious. We’re going to back off, let him think he’s won, wait for him to relax and do something stupid. He’ll try to see the sister, sooner or later. He’s bound to. Or something else like that. We need to give him space, you were right. We’re pulling back.”  
Lemmon gapes for a second, before an unmistakable look of relief floods onto his face.  
“Okay, if you think best. Right. We let him get complacent, yeah.”  
“Yeah. And we get back to trying to catch the guys who’re actually doing stuff right now, instead of the guy who did it a decade ago. Fuck him. Let’s get all of this crap packed up.”  
“You missed a couple of the pics,” Lemmon says, indicating the wall, where several of their earlier shots have been tacked up for weeks. He moves over to pull out the pins and take them down. “They’re out of order, I’ll have to sort them all out sometime.”   
“Shit, I thought I’d got them all straight. Well, whatever.”  
He glances at the prints in Lemmon’s hand.  
“Jesus, what a pair of dedicated home shoppers. Maybe it’s a gardening thing. It’s kind of ironic, you know? Jem Coughlin, the gardener. He used to work for the Florist and now he’s the Gardener…” He looks one last time at the photograph on top of the file as Lemmon drops them all into the box. Mathieson, Coughlin, whoever the fuck he is, is reading a Hummerts catalog, with his wife at his shoulder, drinking a soda and stirring something on the stove.  
“Imagine all the prints on that thing,” he says, tapping the image of the catalog. The damned catalog, in those damned fingers.  
“Yeah…”  
“Okay, okay, fuck this. We’re packing up and pulling out. It’s all arranged. C’mon, let’s get going.”  
Lemmon shuts the box file, and tapes it down firmly; and that is that. 

***************************************

Two years later, at the height of the recession, Green Sunshine Gardens shuts down. No-one thinks anything of it, since a good many small businesses have gone bankrupt, even in California. A few months after that, the Mathiesons split up, and neighbours see James leaving, with a face like a hurricane and his belongings piled into the back of his beaten-up truck. The company name has been painted out on the side.   
He moves into a tiny apartment downtown, and never goes near his wife.   
Maggie stays in the house, looking and sounding very depressed, and tells her friends and neighbours she can’t believe how things have turned out for them so bad, after everything they’ve both come through, and it’s enough to break your faith, really it is. She goes on singing with the band occasionally, though the guys can tell her heart isn’t in it.  
She goes back to a mundane office job after a few weeks. Across town, her estranged husband is driving a delivery vehicle for a living. They don’t ever see one another.  
No-one thinks anything of that, either, since it’s what couples do when they separate. It’s legal and normal, and a sadly regular occurrence, especially in times like these.  
No-one thinks anything of it, either, when Maggie Mathieson starts selling a lot of her and her husband’s things. She’s got that mortgage to keep up with, after all.   
And even though the local police are still keeping a very small eye on Mathieson, they see nothing unusual about any of this, since these are things that could happen to anyone. When the instruction was given all that time ago, it was to report anything suspicious. A marriage breakdown isn’t suspicious, just sad, and a mess.   
They drive by his apartment once a month or so, to check he’s still there. Maggie they don’t check on at all, since they were never told to in the first place.  
So no-one notices when she begins to withdraw her savings from the bank.  
One morning the neighbours realise that her car has not been in the driveway for several days. They all assume she’s gone away for a trip; probably visiting her Dad in Nova Scotia, say the ones who know her best. No-one in the street knows that she’s quit her job; and no-one at her job knows that she hasn’t been seen at home. So Maggie Mathieson isn’t reported as missing for over two weeks.   
Even then no-one initially connects her disappearance to her husband, and another three days go by before the PD decides to check with him, in case he can give them her father’s address in Canada.   
That’s when they find that he too has moved out.  
Six weeks later, when the mortgage lender finally gets through the necessary legal procedures to repossess the house, they find it stripped bare. When Adam Frawley, rigid with anger, stands on the gravel drive more than two months after the Mathiesons skipped town, it is to be told that the local forensics team had never seen such a thorough job. The whole place had been bleached and scrubbed and wiped clean, not a single print, not a speck of DNA anywhere, not so much as a breadcrumb or a cobweb. The same with the tiny apartment downtown. Both properties are already on the market; the house is to be sold at auction and has been viewed by numerous potential buyers by now, and about as many possible tenants have visited the apartment. They are hopelessly compromised as crime scenes.   
The truck and the car have neither of them ever turned up, either, and there have been no reports of a couple looking like the Mathiesons, or using their credit cards, or showing their drivers’ licenses. If anywhere caught them on CCTV, leaving town, after this length of time the chances are that the records will have been wiped.   
Margaret and James Mathieson have vanished off the face of the earth.  
Frawley’s one consolation, as he stares at Mathieson’s house – Coughlin’s house – now about to become someone else’s house again – is that at least, now, he knows he was right. They may not have meant it, but in a way it is their parting gift to him. He may never catch them, but because they ran, he’s got a kind of closure.   
If they ever show up again, he’ll just start over. That’s how it is, he tells himself, as he gets into the hire car and slams the door, and drives the forty miles back to San Jose International. That’s how it is with some cases. No matter how cold the trail gets. You never give up.

 

And a thousand miles away in Washington State, in a small town on the straits with a view of Vancouver Island in clear weather, a new business has just started up on South Peabody. It’s in premises that had been left empty by the recession for some months and that were pretty cheap to rent in consequence. “Laughlin’s - For Green Thumbs”; it’s a garden shop. If you go inside, you’ll find racks of tools, and shelves of seed packets, a small range of seasonal bedding plants in trays, and you’ll breathe a pleasant warm smell of potting compost and lavender. The store sells wild birdseed and pet supplies, too, and the proprietors have already promised to have tomato vines and a bigger selection of garden plants, come spring.   
They seem like pleasant people, and the local community is welcoming, in the manner of small towns. Jake and Peggy Laughlin; they’re an attractive, friendly couple in their forties.  
They’re renting the tiny rooms above the shop to live in, but one weekend, they visit a realtor’s office, and start to look at apartments for sale, talking cheerfully. They hold hands, sitting in the office, looking at his computer screen at the details of local properties on the market. An apartment will do for now, they say, just a small place while we’re watching the pennies. We do hope to be able to afford a proper house in a few years’ time, they say; something with a second storey and a garden of its own. And they smile at one another like they’re kids of twenty-one, kids just starting out and fresh in love...   
They’ve just moved into the area, they say; and what a lovely area it is, too. We feel right at home already here, they say.   
Right at home.


End file.
